Two weeks ago, I wondered why the government wasn’t using its own analysis to justify its proposal for an EI hiring credit—even after the parliamentary budget officer projected that the $550-million measure would create just 800 jobs, the government continued to defer to the analysis of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, an industry association that represents the businesses the credit is supposed to assist.

A day later, we found out that while the government did conduct some kind of its own analysis of its own policy, it apparently hadn’t gone so far as to estimate how many jobs would be created by a policy that was touted as a job-creating measure.

There, Oliver explained that the government had relied on the analysis of the CFIB. We know from the previous appearance of a finance official that the Finance Department has not analyzed the methodology behind that analysis. Nor has it analyzed the PBO’s methodology. Nor it seems, from Oliver’s testimony, has the government analyzed why the PBO and the CFIB arrived at different estimates.

Here, first, is my transcript of the most relevant portions of yesterday’s exchanges between Oliver and the NDP and Liberal finance critics with a few interjections for context. After that, a few words from the CFIB about all this.

We start with NDP critic Nathan Cullen.

Cullen: Has your department done an analysis of jobs impact for the $550 million you’re taking out of the Employment Insurance fund, money that according to your colleagues does not belong to the government, but to the people who pay into it?

Oliver: The government has relied on the analysis of those who are the small business experts, those who actually represent small business, which is the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and it estimated that the $550-million EI payroll tax reduction for some 780,000 companies will create 25,000 person years of employment.

Cullen: Yet ignored the reality that was presented in the analysis from the parliamentary budget officer, an office that your government set up, that shows this will cost half a million dollars or more per job. To rely on the analysis of the CFIB alone and not your own department’s lack of analysis or that from the parliamentary budget officer I would say is to ignore evidence that’s in front of you as finance minister.

Oliver: Well, we relied on those who know their industry best and they have been telling us for years that the No. 1 killer of jobs are payroll taxes. And so we listened to small businesses and we’ll continue to take measures to help create jobs and generate growth.

A short while later, Liberal critic Scott Brison picks up the thread.

Brison: When your finance officials appeared before this committee, they admitted that Finance Canada had not done any internal analysis on the small business job credit. Do you think it’s acceptable to introduce a measure that costs $550 million without doing any internal analysis about its potential impact on job creation?

Oliver: Well, the department does not analyze every measure that we introduce, but if we don’t do it we look to those who have expertise and we did in this case, to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

This seems to me to be a key point: Is it unreasonable to expect that the Finance department produce analysis of the impact of every major fiscal policy the government announces? Even if not, shouldn’t it be able to if the policy becomes a point of debate? How is Parliament expected to analyze and judge the proposals it is asked to approve?

I suppose, ideally, we might have an analysis from the government, an analysis from a well-funded and properly empowered parliamentary budget officer. Then sufficiently independent committees would be allowed the time and resources to fully explore and debate the reasoning, data and context.

Or maybe I’m just a crazy dreamer.

Brison: So are you aware of the methodology they used?

Oliver: We are aware that they have expertise, they’ve spoken to their members and I have had an opportunity to speak to them and I’ve had an opportunity to speak to many small businesses in my riding in Toronto and elsewhere around the country. You know, you may not want to listen to small businesses. We do, and they are the biggest generators of employment in the country.

Brison: So you’re not aware of their methodology they used to come to that number?

Oliver: I am aware that they have spoken to their members and they do their regular type of analysis that you’d expect them to do. I mean, when you invest over half a billion dollars, there’s a macro-economic impact and we’re very comfortable there’ll be significant job creation.

Brison: So when the parliamentary budget officer’s analysis, which, you know, the methodology is transparent and is available to any of us, showed that the job credit would create 800 jobs over two years, did you ask your department to reconcile the difference, the delta between 800 jobs versus 25,000 from the CFIB’s estimate? Did you have a curiosity as to why there was such a delta?

Oliver: Well, yeah, we have received a number of estimates from a variety of organizations on a variety of topics and sometimes one looks at them and decides on the face whether they seem to make sense. When the CFIB said it’s a big, big deal for small business, it’s good news for people looking for jobs, we’re influenced by that. When they say that small businesses should be thrilled with this announcement because time and time again they’ve told us that payroll taxes like EI are the biggest disincentive to hiring, we’re influenced by that because they have the expertise on the ground.

So to review: The government is content to trust the CFIB and the existence of a different estimate is met with a shrug.

Brison: So you’re satisfied with no analysis on a $550 [million] …

Oliver: We’re satisfied with their analysis.

Brison: You said you do analysis for certain expenditures, what would trigger—is $550 million not big enough an expenditure to do an analysis?

Oliver: What I said is that we don’t do analyses on every expenditure.

Brison: So why wouldn’t you have done an analysis on this one?

Oliver: Because we didn’t think that we needed to do another analysis when we already had received one. And we knew that this is a good-news story for small businesses. The small business organizations had been asking us for a long time for this break.

Brison: The PBO also told this committee that there are around 10,000 businesses in Canada that pay between $14,000 and $16,000 in EI premiums. These businesses are close to the threshold, the cap of the program, which, according to economist Jack Mintz, could create a disincentive for hiring or a disincentive to growth. Are you concerned that 10,000 businesses in Canada that are between this threshold, for those businesses that this actually creates a disincentive to growth according to Jack Mintz, economist, and Mike Moffatt and a group of economic leaders?

Oliver: I think that his comments have been parsed and he didn’t critique the whole program at all. I should tell you that we did analyze aspects of the proposal and as I mentioned they are going to benefit 90 per cent of businesses, 780,000 businesses. So we looked at that and we’re comfortable that there would be a significant benefit….

Earlier this week, Jason Kenney told the House that Jack Mintz actually supported the government’s EI hiring credit. For the record, here is the analysis Mintz wrote for the Globe. Here is Mike Moffatt’s analysis. And here is Stephen Gordon’s analysis.

Awhile after Brison’s time was up, the NDP’s Guy Caron returned to the issue. He asked about the PBO’s analysis and then returned to the CFIB.

Caron: [inaudible] the utmost respect for the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses. They do good work representing their members. They prepared a study that actually recommends a measure that will cost half a billion dollars that will be to the advantage of their members. So they’re doing what they should be doing, which is working for the members and they are getting some money for their members. My question is not about the CFIB, it’s about in this instance, wouldn’t it be standard procedure for a government department, such as the Finance department, to actually undertake its own independent study to ensure the numbers are accurate and not coming from what is basically a lobby group?

Oliver: They are a lobby group, but they represent small businesses and have the in-depth expertise to understand and to convey the implications of a decrease in EI for their members. We have looked at the impact, our department has looked at the impact of the 780,000 individual companies and on a macro-basis and we’re comfortable that when [en francais] the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses says that this will create 25,000 person-years, in other words jobs, it is relying on the expert analysis.

…

Caron: My question is that this is a group that is working to get benefits for their members. The government is not supposed to just take that at face value. It’s supposed to be undertaking its own, independent assessment to spend, because this is basically a fiscal expenditure, to spend the funds that has been allocated to it. So why doesn’t the federal government undertake independent study of a measure that will basically forgo over half a billion dollars? Put it another way, if the Canadian Federation of Students was coming to you and say with half a billion dollars we could actually create 25,000 jobs for youth, you wouldn’t take that at face value would you?

Oliver: Well we would do what we did in this case. Do an overall review, but we would also look at whether the federation had the economic expertise to do that analysis. If they did, we would be influenced by it and so on.

So if the CFS has anything they’d like to ask for, now’s the time to do it.

Over then to the CFIB. The federation’s chief economist posted his analysis on Oct. 9 after the PBO’s report was released.

Over the phone this morning, Dan Kelly, the president and CEO of the CFIB, explained the federation’s discussions with the government.

EI has been, for many years, the main feature of our pre-budget recommendations to government. So we provide them with a tonne of related information, survey data from our members showing that Employment Insurance is the No. 1 most harmful form of taxation to our members. We’ve provided them, over the years, with dozens of econometric analyses on the impact of payroll taxes on small firms and also we raised EI in this round with respect to the burgeoning EI surplus. We wanted to be very, very careful, as we were very critical of the Liberals in the past of using EI money for non-EI purposes, and wanting to make sure that there wasn’t a balloon surplus in any given year that the government would get excited about using for other purposes. So we said we want to see a reduction, the government didn’t believe that it had the capacity to lower EI rates significantly at that moment, so we suggested another form of an EI reduction and then ultimately landed, through back and forth discussions with the minister’s office, on this small business job credit. And that after it looked like that positive, we provided them with our data about what the impact is of a payroll tax reduction in terms of job creation, in terms of creation of person-years of employment. But that was kind of at the end of the process, after it looked like we were good in terms of encouraging them to announce a measure along these lines…

This methodology that we used for this analysis is the same methodology, the same source of data, using the U of T model that we have used for every other discussion around payroll taxes. So we’ve gone over this with Finance for years, mostly related to the potential for a CPP increase. So it’s exactly the same analysis that was used, which is essentially measuring the impact of payroll tax reductions on employment. It’s the same source data that we’ve used, so it wasn’t anything new, it was stuff that Finance had seen for years. We didn’t do a separate analysis specific to this credit [earlier] because essentially it works exactly the same way: it’s a 15 per cent cut in EI premiums and works exactly the same way as any other form of payroll tax increase or decrease would work.

Kelly says he is “flabbergasted” by the whole discussion.

The credit is essentially speeding up a reduction that they had already announced. There’s been no debate about the reduction in Employment Insurance premiums in 2017 and small firms are essentially getting it a couple of years early. They’re getting a chunk of their reduction a couple of years early. The job-creation benefit of it is essentially secondary to the fact that this is essentially an EI cut because employers and employees should not have to pay higher EI premiums than is needed to pay for the cost of the program. So this is essentially returning EI rates back to their break-even level.

The CFIB’s involvement in the analysis of this issue does seem at least a bit awkward—the federation currently lists the hiring credit among its “victories” on the left side of its website. But I think its analysis should stand or fall on its own merits (note: I’m a guy with a degree in English literature and would never pretend to be able to judge those merits on my own). Kelly says the basis for the analysis that the CFIB has provided to the Finance department in the past can be found in this report on the impact of CPP premiums. I will leave it to others to judge all of that.

Otherwise, we’re left with a wholly worthwhile discussion about how our public policy gets made.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/the-ei-hiring-credit-joe-oliver-will-take-the-cfibs-word-for-it/feed/2Do we respect the primacy of Parliament or don’t we?http://www.macleans.ca/politics/do-we-respect-the-primacy-of-parliament-or-dont-we/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/do-we-respect-the-primacy-of-parliament-or-dont-we/#commentsTue, 18 Nov 2014 18:46:00 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=640435Should the economic update have been presented to Parliament?

NDP Finance Critic Nathan Cullen made a bid yesterday to have it found by the Speaker that Finance Minister Joe Oliver violated the privileges of MPs when the fall economic update was, once again, presented to a private audience instead of parliamentarians.

I don’t expect the Speaker will find in Cullen’s favour. But that doesn’t mean Cullen doesn’t have a point.

I’m not aware of any rule or ruling that has established any requirement of ministers to make announcements or statements of government policy to the House of Commons. Each day does, theoretically, include time set aside for “statements by ministers,” but the time is rarely ever utilized by a minister to make a statement—and really, why, if given the option, would a minister ever choose to participate in a democratic exercise that permits opposition MPs a right of reply, when he or she can speak in a safe environment where she or he can, if desired, deliver his or her statement without having to worry about direct criticism or questions?

In Britain, there is at least some vague expectation that the House of Commons should be the first to hear about important matters of state.

Here‘s John Bercow, the current Speaker in Britain, when he asked the House to support his election in June 2009:

. . . once and for all, ministers must be obliged to make key policy statements here.

. . . as I said on Monday, when ministers have key policy statements to make, the House must be the first to hear them, and they should not be released beforehand.

Here he is a year after that, responding to a point of order that objected to the leaking of the Queen’s Speech:

The House will share the Hon. gentleman’s disappointment that it and he did not hear for the first time the details of the government’s legislative programme while listening to the Queen’s Speech this morning. This gives me the opportunity to say, at the start of this new Parliament, that I shall continue to expect, as I said two days after first being elected Speaker last June, that, “Ministers ought to make key statements to the House before they are made elsewhere.” If they do otherwise, I—and, I am sure, the House—will expect to hear explanations and apologies as necessary.

Apologies.

In 2011, Bercow punished the chancellor of the exchequer for leaking elements of the autumn economic statement—a statement that is expected to be made in the House.

Bercow has also revived a practice of the U.K. Parliament—the urgent question—that can be used to compel ministers to attend to the House to speak about relevant matters.

In responding to Cullen’s point yesterday, Government House leader Peter Van Loan conveyed the Canadian history of the fall economic statement as follows:

In fact, going back to the very start, it has very often not been something that has necessarily been tabled in the House. Sometimes it has occurred before a finance committee, sometimes it has been done by news release, and sometimes it has been done out across Canada in order to bring the message to Canadians in their various communities, in places as diverse as Mississauga, Calgary, Fredericton, Edmonton and Victoria. This has been a long-standing practice.

Here is my history of the economic update, as created by Paul Martin in 1994. In the case of Martin and his Liberal successors, John Manley and Ralph Goodale, the update was always presented to members of the finance committee. Even when the update was presented outside Ottawa—in 1997, 1999 and 2002, in Vancouver, London and Halifax, respectively—the finance committee travelled to the location to convene a meeting.

In 2006, Jim Flaherty made a presentation to the finance committee. In 2007, he attempted to address the House, but was blocked. In 2008, he successfully addressed the House (and then the Conservative government nearly fell).

From then on, Flaherty went about avoiding the House and its MPs, opting instead for audiences in Victoria, Mississauga, Calgary, Fredericton and Edmonton. Last week, Joe Oliver went to Toronto.

It’s cute of Van Loan to say that the update “has been done out across Canada in order to bring the message to Canadians in their various communities.” Presumably, Flaherty and Oliver could have managed the same kind of outreach while still, as Martin and Manley did, making their presentation to a committee of MPs.

For that matter, it’s entirely unclear why, as a Canadian, you should feel any more respected by the finance minister speaking to individuals who paid $80 per person to hear the update in Toronto than you would be if the finance minister addressed some gathering of duly elected representatives of the public. (Indeed, if the finance minister is, as Van Loan suggests, quite willing to take questions from MPs, then he might demonstrate as much by appearing before MPs to present the update, rather than presenting the update when the House is on a break.)

Quite unlike the Canadian Club of Toronto, the Parliament of Canada (including its associated proceedings) actually belongs to us. Citizens needn’t pay $80 to attend its proceedings, and its proceedings are open to the interventions of those we have elected to represent us.

The fall economic statement is hardly the only announcement that should be presented first to Parliament; it’s just one of the few that, until 2008, was still being made to Parliament.

Nonetheless, if the New Democrats or Liberals want it presented to Parliament, they can promise now to do so if they ever form government. If they really believe in the primacy of Parliament, they can also vow to make all important announcements in the House. Or they could, at the very least, promise to amend the standing orders to establish the urgent question in our Parliament.

On Tuesday, I wondered why the Harper government hadn’t released its own analysis to support one of its own policies: the small business job credit.

Now it seems that, while some kind of analysis exists, the finance department has not calculated an estimate of how many jobs will be created by the small business job credit. Nor has the department analyzed the methodology behind the estimate the government has used to tout the policy.

On Wednesday, during hearings on the latest budget bill, members of the finance committee had a chance to question an official from the finance department about the EI credit.

After clarifying the expected cumulative reduction—$550 million in premiums over two years—NDP finance critic Nathan Cullen asked about the expected result.

Nathan Cullen: How many jobs does Finance Canada estimate will be created as a result of this expenditure of $550 million?

François Masse: So what’s expected is that across the economy, on average across the economy, it’s expected that providing a savings to small businesses is going to be creating incentives for entrepreneurs to grow their business and hire people. This measure, as I just said, is going to result in $550 million returning to entrepreneurs and the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses has indicated that in their estimate, that would result in 25,000 people job years.

Cullen asked Masse to repeat that last bit and then reminded him what the original question had been.

Nathan Cullen: So my question was what does the Government of Canada estimate the jobs impact of this program to be?

François Masse: The Department of Finance has not produced a specific estimate of the job numbers that might result from this measure.

Masse next clarified that the department had provided Finance Minister Joe Oliver with “some analysis,” but that the department “did not produce a specific number of jobs.”

Cullen asked Masse if the department had looked at the Parliament Budget Officer’s analysis of the EI credit—analysis that projected the creation of 800 jobs—but while Masse said the department was aware of the PBO’s report, Finance “has not done an in-depth analysis of the methodology used by the parliamentary budget officer.”

Masse then argued that it was difficult to assess the impact of a single measure.

One thing I would flag, as with most policy measures actually, it’s extremely difficult to isolate the impact of one single measure on something like job creation. There’s a number of convergent impacts that can happen on job creation in a given year. It could be coming from the status of the economy. It could be coming from other policy measures like the Canada Job Grant for example. So it’s very difficult to isolate this measure. I think a testament to that is that two analyses done by two sharp staffs with economists arrive at wildly different numbers.

Cullen proceeded to ask Masse about different aspects of the credit and then Conservative Andrew Saxton, parliamentary secretary to the finance minister, had his turns. There the committee heard that the average benefit for a small business is expected to be $350 and that the finance department believes that while “It’s very difficult to speculate about the specifics of one very particular business,” on balance, across the economy, the department is “expecting that this measure will not create disincentives for growth.” (Here is Mike Moffatt’s analysis on that point.)

Then Liberal finance critic Scott Brison had an opportunity to question Masse.

Brison first asked about the department’s internal analysis and Masse confirmed that, while no “specific job number estimate” had been produced, a “regular analysis” had been conducted.

Brison then turned to the CFIB’s analysis (which the CFIB explained here).

Scott Brison: Have you evaluated, or studied, or analyzed the methodology used by the CFIB?

François Masse: No, we did not.

Scott Brison: No, so when an organization that sells memberships to businesses, or any other membership-based organization comes up with a figure like that, do you embrace that figure as being accurate, without having analyzed the methodology?

François Masse: I wouldn’t characterize the Department of Finance as having embraced or endorsed a figure from an outside organization.

Scott Brison: You do understand it’s highly unusual. It’s not unusual for politicians to necessarily cite one organization’s opinion or another’s, but it’s highly unusual for public servants to do so.

François Masse: That may be. It’s something I wouldn’t comment on.

Masse had, as noted above, cited the CFIB’s estimate that 25,000 person-years of employment would be created, but let’s give him a break—he’s a departmental official, not an elected representative, and he is not accountable for government policy.

As Brison noted, it’s not exactly unusual for politicians to tout the flattering analysis of observers. Would it be unusual to expect that those politicians analyze the analysis they lean on? Maybe. Is it unreasonable to expect as much? I’m not so sure. The politician might at least be expected to say why they prefer one analysis (say, the CFIB’s) to another (say, the PBO’s).

As it is, here is what we have.

The federal government has put forward a new policy, but it has not released its own analysis of the policy’s impact. An official with the relevant department says an estimate of the number of jobs expected to be created by the policy was not calculated and that calculating the number of jobs produced by a single measure is difficult. Nonetheless, the minister touts the estimate of a business association, but the finance department has not done its own analysis of the methodology behind that estimate.

“Good day everyone, I’m Nathan Cullen, I’m the finance critic for the New Democratic Party,” he said. “First of all, we would like to acknowledge that the funeral for Nathan Cirillo is taking place right now and our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family and the entire community in Hamilton.”

We are by no means back to normal. It’s not yet been a week. And Parliament Hill might be forever somehow different.

But perhaps there was a kind of solace here.

“Today we are gathered to talk about Bill C-43,” Cullen said with his next breath, the most recent omnibus bill from the Conservative government. Four hundred and sixty pages, 401 articles, dozens of laws changed with the single stroke of a pen.”

Is it bad to feel good about the bad of another omnibus bill? Is it wrong to greet even this kind of familiar?

That 478 pages were tabled last week, via C-43, makes this an autumn like nearly any other of recent vintage. There were 322 pages in the fall of 2013, 430 in 2012 and 658 in 2011. And now we get to hear the familiar refrains.

“Four-hundred-and-sixty pages,” Cullen lamented (page counts may vary) “401 articles, dozens of laws changed in almost nothing to do with the budget itself.”

A familiar refrain tinged with the feelings of the last six days.

“The Conservatives had an opportunity to work with other parties, to renew the faith in our democracy,” Cullen continued, “and to treat Parliament with respect and, given the incidences and the words that have been spoken in this place over the last number of days, one would have hoped for better from the government rather than this—because this is an abusive piece of legislation that does so little to help our economy or our country.”

The timing was coincidental and conflation is problematic; we might draw thick black lines to clarify what last week can and cannot be referenced in relation to.

Regardless of the events, feelings and words of the moment, the omnibus bill would be a deep philosophical conundrum for the legislator and the legislature. Even regardless of the wisdom or righteousness of the actual clauses contained therein, the omnibus bill should be a worthy matter for debate.

“First, there is a lack of relevancy of these issues. The omnibus bills we have before us attempt to amend several different existing laws,” a young MP lamented some 20 years ago. “Second, in the interest of democracy, I ask: How can members represent their constituents on these various areas when they are forced to vote in a block on such legislation and on such concerns?”

We could allow that a certain kind of omnibus bill is vaguely within the bounds of defensible practice; one of Pierre Trudeau’s signature achievements was an omnibus bill that made dozens of changes to criminal law. Even that might’ve been a bit much, but it at least had some kind of unifying theme to its contents.

Though we might hope that a budget bill would adhere to some generally acceptable definition of a budget—oh sorry, we don’t really call it a “budget” anymore, it’s an “economic action plan,” possibly because comic book characters are very big right now—but we could surely never enforce a standard that kept each bill to a single measure. Some amount of complication might be necessary and some grouping of initiatives might even be advisable. The question thus becomes: How much is too much?

This much was grasped by Speaker Lucien Lamoureux more than 30 years ago.

“However, where do we stop? Where is the point of no return?” he wondered. “The honourable member for Winnipeg North Centre, and I believe the honourable member for Edmonton West, said that we might reach a point where we would have only one bill, a bill at the start of the session for the improvement of the quality of the life in Canada, which would include every single proposed piece of legislation for the session. That would be an omnibus bill with a capital O and a capital B. But would it be acceptable legislation? There must be a point where we can go beyond what is acceptable from a strictly parliamentary standpoint.”

We have apparently not yet hit that point. At least, not officially. At least, not so far as a majority of the members of the House of Commons have seen fit to do something to create some point beyond which a government cannot go.

So Lamoureux’s questions still stand. If 450 pages is okay, why not 900 pages? (Actually, we already had one of those, in 2010.) If 900 pages is fine, why not 1,000 or 2,000 or 5,000 or 50,000? Why not a single bill each spring containing everything the government wanted to do that year?

Conceivably, this annual bill could be, as with recent budget bills, divided up and sent to separate committees for study. Perhaps the House could have a particularly long debate of the bill. Would that somehow end up being sufficient?

The government could certainly make some claim to being efficient. And it could come up with a particularly unimpeachable name for the bill—something like the “Purest Expression Of Human Fairness and Strength Act” or simply the “Great Act.”

Or possibly that would be silly.

A series of vaguely specific bills offers at least two benefits that such an omnibus bill would not.

First, it allows for the focus of public attention and feeling. Second, it offers each MP a chance to vote separately on each of the dozens of government bills that will come before the House in a year.

The latter is tempting to discount: If bills generally pass or fail along party lines, it is not obviously necessary that we even need to bother with votes. But the omnibus bill makes a mockery of the situation, applying a single vote to dozens of measures and weighting that vote as a matter of confidence. It does not even allow for the possibility that members might support one or two or even half of the measures, but still wish to oppose the major parts of the government’s agenda.

New Democrats might support changes to the national DNA data bank (Division 17 of Part 4), but they can’t officially vote in favour of those changes without voting in favour of every other part of this fall’s bill. A vote against this budget bill is a vote against allowing the Northwest Territories to reschedule its election if that election conflicts with a federal election (Division 13 of Part 4). Agreeing with the government’s changes to the temporary foreign worker program means also agreeing with the government’s changes to social assistance requirements for refugees, the government’s plan to establish an Arctic research centre, and the government’s respective changes to aerodrome and port regulation. (If each and every part of the bill is so good, it has been noted, it should be able to stand on its own.)

Perhaps the New Democrats or Liberals might vote differently on such things. Perhaps breaking up omnibus bills would reveal, ever so slightly, a greater diversity of opinion. (And while we’re at it, we might imagine votes not always strictly breaking down party lines and committee members given sufficient freedom from their party whips to allow for independent analysis and amendment of bills, but let’s not dream too big.)

“We don’t yet claim to understand all the aspects to it,” Cullen conceded this morning of C-43. “I doubt the finance minister understands it, because most of this has got nothing to do with the budget. This is the kitchen sink. This is the trojan horse.​”

This is a trojan horse, with a kitchen sink inside, within which has been left both a kit and a caboodle.

Perhaps that’s one way we could test an omnibus budget bill: Immediately after tabling the bill, the finance minister could be made to take a pop quiz on its contents. Everything he can sufficiently explain stays in. Anything he can’t gets taken out. We could have Kevin Page administer the test and separate panels of policy experts judge the minister’s responses. There’s probably a CBC show here somewhere.

That would at least be entertaining. We could make it a new fall tradition.

The NDP caucus meets each Wednesday morning in the Railway Room, the grand room to the right of the Hall of Honour, reserved for gatherings of the Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition. You can see the main entrance to the room on the right side of the video of this morning’s shooting.

New Democrat MPs were in the middle of their weekly meeting when the shooting began.

“I was sitting at the back of the room. I was just about to slip out to do a radio interview that was pre-planned, and I don’t know if I’d gotten up yet or was about to, and it sounded like banging, like trash lids being banged very loudly outside, echoey,” said NDP House leader Nathan Cullen this afternoon. “When I went to open the door is when the security came in through the other side, and the look on his face told me it wasn’t some disruptive protester going on.”

NDP MP Craig Scott said he heard two bursts of gunfire. MPs ducked under tables. Cullen says the security guard “jammed the lock, and then I went to the other door. We got everybody away from the tables and leaning up or sitting against the wall, which is safer than being in the middle of the room, and then went to the other door and put some tables in front of that and locked it, as well.” Scott says he put a table against the door nearest to him, then he and another MP, Hoang Mai, stood on either side of the door to attempt to reinforce it in case someone tried to push through. Scott says the security guard put a trolly in front of another door. Not long after the shooting stopped, security evacuated the MPs.

On Tuesday, the procedure and House affairs committee met to discuss concerns about the ability of MPs to move around Parliament Hill during visits by foreign dignitaries, when security on the Hill is heightened. Scott says that, last night, he mentioned to a couple other MPs that he was concerned about security on the Hill. “It was raised by the issue of how the security forces have to balance access for both the public and parliamentarians with serious security. And I was saying, ‘Well, here’s why I’m extraordinarily worried about what could happen. I’m proud that we have such an open, accessible legislature, but it’s very easy, if somebody isn’t worried about their own life, to do something.’ That was basically my point. And, after the incident, I had a couple of MPs come straight up to me and say, ‘Wow, you called it.’ ”

In the hours after the shooting, Cullen said tensions had eased, but that the impact of the day won’t be known for days. “Over the hours, the tension has obviously lifted, to some point,” Cullen said. “And, having worked overseas, I’ve unfortunately been around, not this exact scene, certainly, but around this kind of violence. I think the real shock generally hits for most people later on. That’s the thing that you generally have to watch for.”

Nathan Cullen and Scott Reid got a little silly after Question Period. An exchange between the pair did not two statesmen make, but it was at least mildly entertaining after a typically acrimonious 45 minutes in the Commons.

Earlier, Cullen thought he might embarrass the Tory MP. Reid, an MP from eastern Ontario, sits on the board of directors of Giant Tiger, a popular chain of discount stores founded by his father, Gordon. The company’s CEO, Andy Gross, has called on the government to withdraw its proposed trademark reform, which Gross claims will “prejudice small and medium businesses that have not yet had the chance to devote valuable startup resources to trademark protection.”

A tricky situation for Reid, to be sure, since he’ll likely vote for the reform that’s attached to the government’s broader omnibus budget legislation. Cullen, however, flubbed the question. He referred to Reid as the MP for Lanark-Carleton. Reid is the MP for Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington. Cullen also stumbled on Giant Tiger’s name, calling it Giant Target before correcting himself.

After QP, Reid called Cullen out, and quipped that the “Giant Target” trademark is still available.

Unfortunately, Reid referred to Cullen in his former position as NDP House Leader—a miscue that might have been deliberate, given the circumstance. Either way, Cullen corrected the record and offered the pay stub to prove his current role. That was a self-deprecating jab acknowledging the pay cut Cullen absorbed when he shifted gigs on the NDP front bench. Speaker Andrew Scheer appeared bemused.

Sure, Cullen and Reid’s mini-duel will end up as nothing but an historical footnote, but at least we were kind of entertained, right?

The NDP has announced a small shuffle of the shadow cabinet—some business that was made necessary when Olivia Chow, formerly the transport critic, left to pursue the Toronto mayoralty. Peter Julian goes from natural resources to House leader, Chris Charlton goes from industry to natural resources, Peggy Nash goes from finance to industry, Nathan Cullen goes from House leader to finance and Hoang Mai becomes the transport critic, having previously been the associate critic for transport.

I’m generally not sure how much the “team” matters as a motivator of votes, though I suppose, insofar as the NDP has never formed government, voters might be interested to see what sort of people they might be putting into power. You at least don’t want to be scaring or offending anyone with the people you surround yourself with, I suppose.

Of today’s moves, most interesting might be Mr. Cullen’s move to finance—arguably the most prominent file and probably still the file where the New Democrats most need to prove their reasonableness. Mr. Cullen came to the fore as the interesting underdog in the party’s leadership race and then took on new prominence as the House leader for an opposition that was happy for the fight. So far as QP is concerned, he’s not quite a master of the form, but he’s a willing combatant (there was that one time, presumably with the assistance of the NDP research bureau, that he got the better of Peter MacKay) and now the NDP can set him against Joe Oliver and we will get to see how well Mr. Cullen can handle policy. Mr. Cullen also apparently holds some value for the party beyond the House. “He’s a good campaigner and outreach guy,” an official in the opposition leader’s office says. “We needed to free him from the House.”

Government House leader Peter Van Loan has now moved a time allocation motion for the Fair Elections Act—allotting three further days of debate at second reading. (How much debate should a bill have at second reading? Probably there needs to a full debate about time allocation and how the business of the House is managed, it’s not quite so easy, I don’t think, as to say time allocation is purely good or bad. But for the sake of anecdotal comparison: the Conservative government’s Accountability Act received three days of debate at second reading in 2006, while the former Liberal government’s election reform bill received seven days of debate in 2003.)

In advance of that motion for time allocation, the New Democrats pursued various moves to delay matters and attack the act—there was a motion to adjourn, followed by a slow vote, followed by a question of privilege concerning the translation services during the briefing for MPs on the Fair Elections Act and then Nathan Cullen got up on a point of order arguing that there is a discrepancy between the English and French texts of the bill.

Meanwhile, at the Procedure and House Affairs committee, NDP deputy leader David Christopherson moved the following motion on the eventual study of the Fair Elections Act.

That the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, upon receiving an order of reference from the House concerning C-23, amendment to the elections act, initiate a study on this legislation which will include the following:

- Hearing witnesses from, but not limited to, Elections Canada, Political Parties as defined under the Canada Elections Act, the Minister of State who introduced the bill, representatives of First nations, anti-poverty groups, groups representing persons with disabilities, groups representing youth advocates and students, as well as specific groups which have been active in society on elections rules, including Fair Vote Canada, SAMARA, Democracy Watch and the BC Civil Liberties Union,

- And that the Committee request to travel to all regions of Canada, (Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, Northern Ontario, the Prairies, British Columbia and the North), as well as downtown urban settings (such as the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver) and rural and remote settings, and that the committee request that this travel take place in March and April 2014,

- And that the committee shall only proceed to clause by Clause consideration of this bill after these hearings have been completed, with a goal to commence clause by clause consideration for May 1, 2014.

The motion will presumably be dealt with at a subsequent meeting of the committee.

Yesterday the Speaker intervened during a question by Liberal MP Scott Andrews and this morning, in response to a point of order raised by NDP House leader Nathan Cullen in December, Andrew Scheer addressed the House about the parameters for questions and responses during Question Period. I’ve fussed over these issues before—see here, here, here and here—with some general feeling that the Speaker might adopt a stricter understanding of what is and isn’t worth the House’s time (including, at that last link, my submission that the Speaker might cut responses short on occasion).

Here is how Speaker Scheer explained his approach to the daily airing of grievances.

On December 9, 2013, the hon. House Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Cullen) raised various issues relating to Question Period. Other Members from all parties in the House have from time to time voiced similar concerns. In view of the desire for clarification regarding the rules and practices governing the conduct of Question Period, I undertook to return to the House and I would like to take a few minutes now to address the principles that govern this proceeding.

A good place to start is Chapter 11 of the second edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice which describes the evolution of Question Period from an historical perspective. What is immediately apparent is that the practice of Members posing oral questions to the government has been a part of our daily proceedings since before Confederation. The longevity and staying power of this practice flow from the very principles that underpin our system of parliamentary democracy.

As House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, states at page 491:

(quote) “The right to seek information from the Ministry of the day and the right to hold that Ministry accountable are recognized as two of the fundamental principles of parliamentary government. Members exercise these rights principally by asking questions in the House. The importance of questions within the parliamentary system cannot be overemphasized and the search for or clarification of information through questioning is a vital aspect of the duties undertaken by individual Members.” (unquote)

That is not to say that it is only recently that the conduct of Question Period has become a topic of public debate. On the contrary, virtually every Speaker, at one time or another, has had something to say about Question Period.

In the 1870s for example, when Question Period was still in its infancy, Speaker Anglin declared that Members ought to confine themselves to seeking information from the Government and that it was not appropriate to (quote) “proceed to descant on the conduct of the Government” (unquote). By the 1940s, Speaker Glen was pointing to the need for questions to be brief and that these (quote) “must not be prefaced by any argument” (unquote). It was always understood, of course, that questions were to relate to matters that were “urgent and important”. Other guidelines came and went, depending on the times.

In the early 1960s, Speaker McNaughton unsuccessfully tried to enforce several long-standing unwritten rules regarding the content of questions.

In 1964 a report by a special committee set out certain guidelines respecting questions and went so far as to say that (quote) “answers to questions should be as brief as possible, should deal with the matter raised, and should not provoke debate” (unquote).

In the 1970s, O’Brien and Bosc tells us at page 495, Question Period became (quote) “an increasingly open forum where questions of every description could be asked” (unquote), this despite Speaker Jerome having identified several principles underlying QP and issuing guidelines for its conduct. Many attributed these developments to the advent of the television era but whatever the cause, this trend to a more free-wheeling Question Period continued unabated by a statement made by Speaker Bosley in the mid-1980s aimed at curtailing the lack of discipline.

A simple review of the section entitled Principles and Guidelines for Oral Questions, found at pages 501 to 504 of O’Brien and Bosc, shows just how many of these “guidelines” have fallen into disuse, some fairly recently. Throughout all these changes, one thing remains clear: the Speaker, as the servant of the House, can enforce only those practices and guidelines the House is willing to have enforced. Very often the particular circumstances of the moment dictate how far the Speaker can go without unduly limiting the freedom of speech of Members.

But when content causes disorder, the Speaker must step in, all the while acting within the confines of our rules and practices. This is particularly necessary given that this House is one of the few Westminster-style deliberative assemblies where neither the question nor the topic of the question need be submitted beforehand. While this certainly makes for a lively and much watched parliamentary exercise, it does little to make the Speaker’s job any easier.

The main purpose of Question Period is undoubtedly the opportunity it provides to the legislative branch to seek information from the executive and to hold the government to account. This opportunity is particularly important for the opposition parties. We all recognize that the opposition has the right and, indeed the duty, to question the conduct of the government, and every effort must be made in the enforcement of our rules to safeguard that right. But the government can only be held to account for matters that fall within its administrative responsibilities.

For example, that is why my predecessors and I have frequently ruled out of order questions regarding election expenses. Elections Canada is an independent, non-partisan agency of Parliament. While in a technical sense, there is a Government Minister responsible for Elections Canada (the Minister transmits the agency’s estimates, for example), the fact remains that the Chief Electoral Officer reports to the House through the Speaker. As Speaker Milliken noted in a ruling given on October 22, 2007, at page 209 of Debates, it is difficult to ask questions about Elections Canada to the Government, unless there is a link to the administrative responsibilities of the government (a link such as questions about changes in the law respecting Elections Canada, for example).

It is for similar reasons that questions that concern internal party matters or party expenses, or refer to proceedings in the Senate or the actions of Senators, or indeed of other Members, risk being ruled out of order. On the latter point, as Speaker Milliken stated in a ruling on June 14, 2010, found in Debates at page 3778, (quote) “the use of […] preambles to questions to attack other Members does not provide those targeted with an opportunity to respond or deal directly with such attacks.” (unquote) Thus, unless a link to the administrative responsibilities of the government can be established early in the question to justify them, such questions can be and indeed have been, ruled out of order by successive Speakers. I discovered this myself once when in my early days in the Opposition, a question of mine was ruled out of order by Speaker Milliken.

As always, however, the Speaker faces many challenges in applying the rules the House has set out. Anytime a Speaker rules a question out of order, the Member concerned will claim a legitimate reason for asking it: will claim that it is in the public interest; will claim it is something that Canadians have a right to know; will claim that there is no longer a distinction between acting as party leader and leading the party in the House – and the list goes on.

But the Speaker must adhere to the longstanding principle that Question Period is intended to hold the government to account. I have to look at whether the matter concerns a government department, or a minister who is exercising ministerial functions, as a minister of the Crown, and not just as a political figure or as a member of a political party. The Speaker must ask whether the question was actually touching upon those types of government responsibilities, or whether it was about elections or party finances or some other subject unrelated to the actual administrative responsibilities of the government.

These principles apply to everyone who gets an opportunity to pose questions in Question Period – including backbench Members of the governing party. Indeed, because the fundamental purpose of Question Period is to provide a forum for the legislative branch to hold the executive to account, it is meant to be an opportunity – for those Government Members fortunate enough to get the floor – to ask probing questions of the Government on matters that fall within its administrative responsibilities. That said, it is not surprising to hear what might be called “friendly” questions from these Members, since they are, after all, supporters of the Government.

But lately, we have witnessed a growing trend: we hear preambles to questions that go on at some length to criticize the position, statements or actions of other parties, Members from other parties and, in some cases, even private citizens, before concluding with a brief question about the Government’s policies.

What we have, therefore, is an example of a hybrid question, where the preamble is on a subject that has nothing to do with the administrative responsibility of the Government, but which concludes, in the final 5 or 10 seconds, with a query that in a technical sense manages to relate to the Government’s administrative responsibilities. The House needs to ask itself if taken as a whole – lengthy preamble and desultory query – can such a question reasonably be assumed by a listener to respect the principles that govern our Question Period? I would submit that it is because this formulation is actually about other parties and their positions, not about the Government – that I have had to rule such questions out of order from time to time.

To complicate matters, as I said on December 1, 2011 (Debates, p. 3875), the Speaker is called upon to make decisions about the admissibility of questions on the fly. In that regard, since Members have very little time to pose their questions and the Chair has even less time to make decisions about their admissibility, it would be helpful if the link to the administrative responsibility of the government were made as quickly as possible.

Accordingly, these kinds of questions will continue to risk being ruled out of order and Members should take care to establish the link to government responsibility as quickly as possible.

With this approach in mind, let me turn now to the issue of answers to questions.

There has been much discussion recently about the nature of answers during Questions Period, with calls for the Speaker to somehow intervene, citing practices in other countries.

It is true that there may be slight differences in the way Question Period is managed elsewhere due to each country’s unique set of traditions, but it is equally without doubt a widespread practice and tradition in Westminster-style parliament that the Chair does not judge the quality or relevance of answers.

For instance, it states on page 565 in Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand, Third Edition, that:

(quote) “While Ministers are required to “address” the question asked in their replies, whether the reply provided actually “answers” the question asked is a subjective judgment. It is no part of the Speaker’s role to make such a judgment.” (unquote)

In South Africa, a similar practice prevails and, according to the National Assembly Guide to Procedure, 2004, on page 211, (quote) “the Chair regulates the proceedings in the House, (but) it is not possible for the Chair to dictate to Ministers how they should reply to questions.” (unquote)

In the United Kingdom, Erskine May’s Treatise on The Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament, 24th edition, at page 356 states:

(quote) “The Speaker’s responsibility in regard to questions is limited to their compliance with the rules of the House. Responsibility in other respects rests with the Member who proposes to ask the question, and responsibility for answers rests with Ministers.” (unquote)

Each Parliament has its own traditions. Successive Speakers in our House have maintained our tradition of not intervening in respect of answers to questions and I do not intend to change that. For me to deviate from this longstanding practice would require an invitation from the House, probably stemming from a review of our rules by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

Given the widespread concern and commentary about Question Period, all Members may want to consider how the House can improve things so that observers can at least agree that Question Period presents an exchange of views and provides some information. The onus is on all Members to raise the quality of both questions and answers.

While the framework, mechanisms and procedures associated with Question Period have evolved with time, its raison d’être and core principles have remained intact. All Members, both in Government and in Opposition, need to ask themselves: Is Question Period a forum that Canadians can look at and conclude that it constitutes a proper use of Members’ time?

The principle of responsible government is that the government has to provide an accounting for where the money goes and to provide reasons for why decisions are made. In the Chair’s view, it takes a partnership between the Opposition and the Government to demonstrate a willingness to elevate the tone, elevate the substance, and make sure that Question Period is being used to do the job that we were elected to do, which is to represent our constituents, advance ideas, and hold the government to account.

In conclusion, I will continue to rule questions out of order that do not establish a direct link to the administrative responsibilities of the government. In the same sense, so-called hybrid questions will also continue to risk being ruled out of order where this link is not quickly demonstrated. Members should take care when formulating their questions, and establish this link as soon as possible in posing their questions to ensure that the Chair does not rule what may be a legitimate question out of order.

The onus is on all Members to raise the quality of questions and answers during Question Period. The Chair notes with interest that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs has been instructed to undertake a review of the Standing Orders. As the servant of the House, the Chair will endeavour to implement any changes to the Standing Orders or to Question Period that the House chooses to adopt.

I thank all honourable Members for their attention to this important matter.

The Speaker’s suggestion that government members might ask “probing questions” is a conceivably important idea. At this point, it is probably taken for granted that the few questions allotted to the government side each day will be used to lob friendly queries at government ministers—stuff like the first questions asked by new Conservative MPs Terry Falk and Larry Maguire yesterday.

But, of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. MPs belonging to the governing party might, instead, raise actual matters of concern. Without blasting their own side, they might ask questions that do not seem like arranged opportunities for the government to expound on its greatness. This is the sort of idea that the Speaker’s ruling on Mark Warawa’s question of privilege might have theoretically presaged and you might include it in any dream about what the House of Commons might be like: a place where the line-up for Question Period is not entirely determined by the lists submitted by the party whips and where MPs on the government side sometimes use that time to raise questions they or their constituents have about government policy.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/authors/aaron-wherry/andrew-scheer-on-question-period/feed/12Stephen Harper asks the GG to read him a bedtime storyhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/stephen-harper-asks-the-governor-general-to-read-him-a-bedtime-story/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/stephen-harper-asks-the-governor-general-to-read-him-a-bedtime-story/#commentsThu, 17 Oct 2013 01:01:59 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=432192And the government will live happily ever after

“Tell the Prime Minister you’ve got his back,” encouraged a note from the Conservative party, sent yesterday in advance of the Speech from the Throne.

Moments after the Governor General had concluded reading said speech, another beseeching.

“Tell the Prime Minister you’ve got his back—and help us seize Canada’s moment,” cheered a note.

You’ll forgive the Prime Minister if this makes him seem a bit needy. (For that matter, you’ll forgive the Prime Minister if this makes him sound like Justin Trudeau. “I’ve got your back,” Mr. Trudeau told his supporters in one appeal sent during the Liberal leadership race. “Now I need you to have mine.”) It’s just that this is the way of modern politics. And it’s just that Mr. Harper has had a rather difficult year and, for the last little while, every time he’s turned around to see who’s with him, his side has lost another person. First Patrick Brazeau, then Mike Duffy and Nigel Wright and Pamela Wallin, then Brent Rathgeber and, most recently, Dean Del Mastro.

“You won’t believe what the Press Gallery just did in Ottawa,” supporters were assured. “Some media decided to boycott an important speech by our Prime Minister – one where he laid out his vision for our country, before today’s Speech from the Throne.”

But wait, there’s more.

“Rather than send cameras to cover the Prime Minister’s speech, they attended the NDP’s meeting, and were welcomed with cheers and applause. We knew they wouldn’t give us fair coverage – but this is a new low for the Ottawa media elite.”

It is hard to imagine how the Ottawa media elite could have gotten any lower than whatever their previous low was, but presumably this is why we need to have the Prime Minister’s back. Because the Ottawa media elite insists on being in the room when he delivers a speech. And because Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau would turn this country into an impoverished hellscape run by drug-dealing public servants. Indeed, had they been present, the elites might have heard what Mr. Harper was trying valiantly to protect us from—the “$20 billion carbon tax,” the “reckless economic experiments with people’s livelihoods” and, of course, “legalizing drugs.”

So it was that the Prime Minister, let down by his senate appointees, abandoned by Mr. Rathgeber, undermined by Nigel Wright, hounded by the jackals of the press gallery, struggling against the opposition monsters lurking under the bed and missing a quarter of the popular support he once enjoyed, turned today to the Governor General, hoping to hear that his government was going to live happily ever after.

And so Grandpa Johnston pulled a book off the shelf and proceeded to read a rather long bedtime story.

It was a story of precariousness. Of a moment needing to be seized. Of needing to dare to do so. Of needing to make good on this opportunity. Or needing to understand that this chance that was ours. Provided we could find a way to reduce the number of emails systems that the government currently operates.

That was but one of 147 bullet points that here ensued. It actually drew a chuckle from the crowd of swells swelling the Senate.

Twenty-four of those bullet points were reminders of things the government has already done. Two bullet points involved the Pan Am Games.

There were commitments here to promote exercise, honour police dogs, lower the cost of adoption, improve food labels, stop genetic discrimination, resist the legalization of prostitution, fight the scourge of forced marriage, figure out what happened to the Franklin expedition, allow for the transportation of wine across provincial borders and prevent doctors from treating chronic heroin addicts with anything that you might think weird. The government vowed that it would “not hesitate to uphold the fundamental rights of all Canadians wherever they are threatened,” “continue to defend the seal hunt,” “take further action to improve air quality nationwide,” “continue to promote Canada as a world-class destination for international students” and “continue to create the conditions for new and better jobs for Canadians across all sectors of our economy.”

Having created a structural deficit, the government now proposes to pass a law that would require the government to balance the budget. Except when it needs to run a deficit. Despite screaming about the NDP’s plan to put a price on carbon, the government now says it will “enshrine the polluter-pay system into law.” It will get to those greenhouse gas regulations for the oil-and-gas sector that are twice overdue. It will make the changes to election law that were supposed to have been made more than a year ago. It will do something about the Senate, just as soon as the Supreme Court rules on how to go about doing it. It will remain tough on crime. It will continue to support the troops. It will keep you safe and comfortable and lower your cable bill. And it will complete a free trade deal with Europe. In fact, the Prime Minister is getting on a plane for Brussels tomorrow.

If you are worried about it, rest assured, the government is on it. And yet, the government will continue to cost less and continue to get smaller. To this Clintonian to-do list might a thousand fundraising appeals follow.

The Prime Minister sat at the Governor General’s knee and listened and no doubt thought pleasant thoughts and was soothed. And when it was over, an hour or so after it had began, the Prime Minister walked over to the House of Commons and sat there and listened as Nathan Cullen, the NDP’s House leader, complained that the government was behaving poorly in its attempt to reinstate legislation from the previous session. The Prime Minister eventually took his leave and the House carried on with the business of resuming business. The clock struck half past six, the allotted time for adjournment, before Charlie Angus, who most definitely does not have the Prime Minister’s back, could stand and accuse the Prime Minister of having misled the House back in June.

Under normal circumstances, however, a motion to do so is either adopted unanimously, or put forward as a stand-alone item, which can then be brought forward for debate, and, if necessary, a vote…

Instead, it appears that the government wants to put opposition MPs in the awkward position of having to choose between giving cabinet what amounts to a blank check to override the usual effect of prorogation, or forcing a full debate on the omnibus motion – at which point, of course, the Conservatives will almost certainly accuse them of trying to back out of the pro-parliamentary accountability measures that were unanimously endorsed by the House in June, and again at a special extra-sessional meeting of the procedure and house affairs committee last month.

The NDP leader wondered finally how the Prime Minister’s spokesmen could thus comment on this matter if they were not involved. Mr. Harper now at least clarified the extent of his staff’s ignorance.

“Mr. Speaker, as I have said repeatedly, it was Mr. Wright who made the decision to take his personal funds and give those to Mr. Duffy so that Mr. Duffy could reimburse the taxpayers,” the Prime Minister reviewed. “Those were his decisions. They were not communicated to me or to members of my office.”

Of that revelation (and thus the apparent contradiction between what the members of his office knew and what the Prime Minister told the House the members of his office knew), the Prime Minister pleaded ignorance.

But on Saturday, the Prime Minister told reporters “when I answered questions about this in the House of Commons, I answered questions to the best of my knowledge.”

Since a question of privilege takes precedence, the House will conceivably have to hear it before it can begin consideration of the Throne Speech. I’m told it will be Charlie Angus who gets the honour of raising the question.

OTTAWA – Nathan Cullen says he’s cool to the idea of running for the leadership of the British Columbia NDP.

But the federal MP isn’t entirely ruling it out.

Cullen, who serves as NDP Leader Tom Mulcair’s House leader in Parliament, says there’s a 15-to-20 per cent chance he’ll move to the provincial arena.

Cullen’s name is being bandied about as a possible successor to Adrian Dix, who formally announced last week his intention to step down as B.C. NDP leader.

Dix’s leadership has been in doubt since last May’s provincial election, when Liberal Premier Christy Clark managed to win re-election with a comfortable majority, defying public opinion polls which had predicted a Dix victory.

Cullen — whose engaging manner and sense of humour helped propel him to a third-place finish in the 2012 federal NDP leadership contest — says his name has come up as a prospective provincial contender because he fits the profile some New Democrats are looking for: young and rural.

Cullen is 41 and represents the riding of northern B.C. riding of Skeena-Bulkley Valley.

“The encouragement has been really nice and humbling,” he said in an interview.

Nevertheless, he added: “I’ve been pretty cool to the idea, honestly.”

Cullen said he’s put together a list of pros and cons and the cons outweigh the pros.

“That’s not a good sign.”

Among the cons, “B.C. tends to be pretty hard on its leaders, of all stripes … It’s pretty tough, it’s very personal and sometimes implicates your family and that’s a place I can’t go. I won’t bring my family into attacks and subject them to that.”

Moreover, Cullen said he’s reluctant to give up his “great role” as House leader federally, which he described as a key element of the party’s “incredibly important project” to win government in the next election in 2015.

Justin Trudeau’s clarion call for transparency on Parliament Hill, recited to reporters yesterday in Ottawa, was a masterful exercise in orchestrated naïveté. The Liberal leader so innocently called on his colleagues across party lines to follow him into the valhalla of open minds and open books. He urged fellow MPs to report detailed expenses online, as his Liberal team plans to do. Trudeau made it sound like a three-legged race at a family barbecue. To wit:

“This is the first step of what I hope will be a cascade of transparency and openness as the other parties try to outdo each other. I would love to see a competition in this, to try and see which party can truly be most transparent to Canadians because right now, the bar is set so low that I’m happy to raise the bar to this level.”

Cynics might call those words arrogant, hollow or a cheap ploy. The other parties declined to join the fun. Government House Leader Peter Van Loan said the board of internal economy, the committee tasked with monitoring MP spending, is looking at improving how it reports that spending—an “important initiative,” said Van Loan, but one that takes time. The NDP’s Nathan Cullen, who sits on the board, said the Liberals’ self-reporting style won’t work and that proper oversight requires outside eyeballs.

Probably, this is a story that sends most readers into a coma. Expenses are the most boring thing in the world until someone starts claiming things improperly, as several senators have learned the hard way. But the way this particular conversation among political leaders played out says a lot about how Trudeau hopes to outmaneuver his political opponents. Pick a harmless issue, pick a direction, challenge opponents to follow, and smile all the while. Posting expenses online, without being told to do so by some higher power, is not something voters will ever punish. Meanwhile, the other parties kick the can down the road.

Once Trudeau starts treating serious policy the same way he treats caucus transparency, and he picks a direction and challenges his opponents to follow, we could have a debate on our hands. We just might have to wait a while.

What you might have missed

THE NATIONAL

Arctic crash. The three victims of a mysterious helicopter crash in Canada’s arctic waters died of hypothermia, according to an autopsy, not from the incident itself. The three men, members of the Coast Guard aboard the icebreaker HMCS Amundsen, had set off to find a route for the ship. They sent out no distress call before the crash.

THE GLOBAL

French murder. A French jeweller, Stephan Turk, was charged with voluntary homicide after he shot—and killed—a 19-year-old robber who’d escaped his store. Protesters in Nice are defending Turk’s action as self-defence, while the robber’s defenders decry vigilante justice as irresponsible. Armed robberies have apparently increased in recent years.

THE QUIRKY

Rats. Parks Canada is hoping to eradicate rat populations on two islands off B.C.’s coast. The agency will drop poison pellets from helicopters on Murchison and Faraday islands, where rats—who have no natural predators—have decimated bird populations. The assault is part of a five-year, $2.5-million campaign to restore the islands’ natural habitat.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/authors/nick-taylor-vaisey/justin-trudeaus-transparency-ploy-cant-lose/feed/54In our hour of need, Justin Trudeau promises us betterhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/in-our-hour-of-need-justin-trudeau-promises-us-better/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/in-our-hour-of-need-justin-trudeau-promises-us-better/#commentsMon, 17 Jun 2013 23:07:12 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=396312In the absence of an agenda, there are only various scandals to wonder about

Before Justin Trudeau had uttered a word, Heritage Minister James Moore had used his fifth response to the New Democrats to scold the Liberal leader and then, in response to Mr. Trudeau’s first question, Mr. Moore had pronounced further shame on him and so now Mr. Trudeau attempted a rallying cry.

“Mr. Speaker,” the Liberal leader declared, “while they break the rules any chance they can get, we do not just follow the rules, we raise the bar.”

Most everyone laughed. The Conservatives and New Democrats howled. NDP House leader Nathan Cullen and Conservative MP Michelle Rempel exchanged pantomimes of weightlifters raising the bar above their heads. Pierre Poilievre made the motion for raising the roof.

The Speaker was compelled to call for order. When the floor was returned to him, Mr. Trudeau put his question and Mr. Moore dismissed it and then the Heritage Minister heaped more scorn on Mr. Trudeau’s speaking fees.

Mr. Trudeau’s grand declaration did sound a bit silly. It surely was a bit silly.

But the sentiment was all right.

These are the final days of the spring session and surely everyone here would rather be elsewhere. There is little left to do and even less to say. And in the absence of an agenda to argue about, there are only various scandals to wonder about and trivialities to chase in the interests of distracting from those scandals.

Without any actual reforms to propose, Tim Uppal, the minister of state for democratic reform, used his time to raise allegations of wrongdoing on the New Democrats. Challenging limits of the Speaker’s unwillingness to impose standards on this place and the extent to which viewers are willing to have their intelligence insulted, Conservative MP Blaine Calkins and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson used a scripted exchange on the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act to criticize Mr. Trudeau’s public speaking. Conservative backbencher Lawrence Toet and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews then performed a similar routine on the subject of Thomas Mulcair’s driving. In response to a question from Liberal MP Ralph Goodale about Nigel Wright, Mike Duffy, Bruce Carson, Arthur Porter, Saulie Zajdel, Peter Penashue and Patrick Brazeau, James Moore cited Mac Harb and, again, Mr. Trudeau.

When it was over the earth did not open wide and swallow this place whole, but surely no one would’ve minded if it had.

It was Mr. Trudeau who, in February, disclosed his appearances and earnings. It was someone from the Grace Foundation who wrote, in March, to lament that their fundraiser had gone poorly. It was the Harper government that, last week, complained loudly about this situation. And it was Mr. Trudeau who, two days after seeming to dismiss the matter, announced that he would make amends.

It might be possible to make a reasonable argument that Mr. Trudeau has done nothing wrong—the same ethics commissioner to whom the Harper government deferred on the matter of Nigel Wright’s cheque seems to have cleared Mr. Trudeau to make the speeches he made between 2008 and 2012. And it might not matter much two years hence—surely Mr. Trudeau would be forgiven were he to look at recent history and conclude that elections could be won despite questions about the ethics of one’s actions.

But this is now for Mr. Trudeau to explain. He made those speeches, he accepted those fees and it thus for him to justify. This afternoon, awhile after Question Period he had concluded, he walked out into the foyer and stood in front of the cameras and took something like 20 questions. Again, he did not contain himself.

“I will talk with them about anything that they want to do. I am open,” he said of the groups he is promising to reach out to.

And then, in the next breath, another declaration.

“What I am demonstrating here is a level of openness, transparency, accountability that has never been seen before on this Parliament,” he ventured. “But this is the kind of standard that I know Canadians want to be able to expect from their public servants. It’s not—from the people who serve in this Parliament, it’s not enough to simply follow the rules or follow the ethics code or even follow the law because we have a government right now that has broken repeatedly all three of those. I am willing to go above and beyond to try and restore Canadians’ faith in a place that has betrayed them too many times.”

Was this silly too? Probably at least a little. Mr. Trudeau is not quite in possession of gravitas. He has not yet done enough to earn it. It was surely not necessary to declare his actions unprecedented. A man should not be proclaiming his own greatness (unless that man is Kanye West). And the politician chased by questions of poor judgment is not well positioned to proclaim the righteousness of his response.

A few more questions and then he was back into the meaning of it all.

“I’ve been very, very clear throughout that I’ve followed all the rules and all the Code of Ethics and all the laws involved but I also am aware that I am running to be prime minister,” he said. “And right now we have a Prime Minister that has demonstrated such a lack of judgment, a lack of openness, transparency, accountability that Canadians have become incredibly cynical about all of us who choose to serve in this place. And I realize that I have an opportunity here to demonstrate that Canadians can expect and deserve a better level of behaviour from people in this place who hope to wield the public trust one day.”

There are so many asterisks to apply to the political promise of Justin Trudeau. He is not yet a commanding performer in the House. He is untested as a political leader. He has said some things he shouldn’t have. He does not have a record of accomplishment. He does not yet have a platform. His poll numbers have the feel of a housing bubble. He has not proven attack ads wrong. An election is still two years away. He is opposite two formidable opponents, each with more experience at this stuff and more MPs in their caucuses. And at the start of the next election, there will be at least 303 ridings without a Liberal incumbent.

“Mr. Speaker, Canadians’ confidence in our public office-holders has been shaken by the opening of a criminal investigation into the Prime Minister’s own office,” Mr. Trudeau had declared with his first question this afternoon. “By raising the bar on openness and transparency, we can begin to restore confidence in our public institutions. Will the government choose transparency over secrecy? Will it publicly release a copy of the $90,000 cheque written by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff to Mike Duffy?”

Mr. Moore had scoffed. “Mr. Speaker,” the minister said, “somebody really should advise the Liberal leader not to lead with his chin in Question Period.”

Indeed, Mr. Trudeau’s declarations this day might’ve been a bit much, might’ve seemed a bit rich. His rivals might’ve laughed and mocked. He might not have proven anything. He might’ve invited only eye rolls.

But maybe still, in this particular moment, Mr. Trudeau has the right idea.

As suggested here yesterday, Justin Trudeau rose after Question Period yesterday afternoon and asked for unanimous consent to pass four motions related to the disclosure of MP expenses. As predicted, he did not receive the necessary unanimous consent. So now Mr. Trudeau says he’s disappointed in the NDP, for apparently denying his motions, and the NDP is accusing Mr. Trudeau of attempting a stunt.

After Mr. Trudeau’s motions were rejected, Nathan Cullen proposed a motion seemingly aimed at Mr. Trudeau’s travels that won unanimous support. Then Elizabeth May raised a proposal that apparently was rejected.

Last week, it was the Conservatives who were asking to fast-track a motion in the Senate to call in the auditor general and it was the Liberals who were refusing to consent to an expedited expression of agreement and thus it was the Prime Minister who got to accuse the Liberals of blocking progress. Then the Liberals in the Senate said they wanted the auditor general to investigate the Prime Minister’s Office and the Conservatives dismissed that as a stunt.

Two weeks ago, the Liberal MP Scott Andrews proposed that the ethics committee study the Duffy-Wright affair, but the Conservatives apparently blocked that.

The beauty of a transparency-measuring contest is that at least its politics are fairly transparent. Which is not to say that one should lose all hope that some greater measure of transparency might be achieved as a result—just that one should be prepared for the process of getting to that point to be regularly and obviously silly.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/transparency-theatre/feed/2How to have an easier time passing an omnibus budget billhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/how-to-have-an-easier-time-passing-an-omnibus-budget-bill/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/how-to-have-an-easier-time-passing-an-omnibus-budget-bill/#commentsMon, 03 Jun 2013 17:54:11 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=390760The government might have maneuvered out of another voting marathon

The Hill Times explains the procedural maneuvering by the Conservatives at the finance committee that will ease the passage of Bill C-60, the year’s first budget implementation act.

At its meeting on May 7, the House Finance Committee passed a motion allowing Bill C-60 to be split up for study at five other committees with any recommendations to be sent to the Finance Committee by May 27, at 9 a.m. In addition, the motion called on the committee chair to write letters to MPs who are not part of a recognized party in the House and invite them to propose amendments to the bill by the same deadline. Any amendments received by the committee would then be “deemed to be proposed” during clause-by-clause study of the bill.

The motion, which Conservative MP Shelly Glover (Saint Boniface, Man.) moved, also gave a deadline of May 28 for the committee to move to clause-by-clause and stated that if it was not completed by 11:59 p.m., all questions to dispose of the clause-by-clause review of the 128-page omnibus bill would be called without further debate on any remaining clauses or amendments in order to report the bill back as early as possible. The motion passed with Conservative committee members voting in favour and all opposition members voting against.

The move was made to allow MPs such as Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) and Bloc Québécois members, who are technically considered “independent” MPs and cannot sit on committees, to participate in the committee hearings. Because they are not normally members of any committee, the only opportunity for them to bring forward amendments to bills is at report stage. Normally, report stage amendments are only deemed in order if they were previously not able to be introduced at committee. Ms. May and Bloc MPs have been using this rule to debate the bills and bring forward substantive amendments to legislation because they are unable to introduce amendments at committee.

Thomas Mulcair stood, folded his hands in front of him at his waist, paused, turned to look directly at the Prime Minister and stated his question.

“Mr. Speaker,” the NDP leader asked, “on what date and at what time was the Prime Minister informed that Nigel Wright had made a payment to Conservative Senator Mike Duffy?”

The Prime Minister stood and ventured that he had already been “very clear” on this matter, but, for the record, he explained himself again here. ”This matter came to my attention two weeks ago after speculation appeared in the media,” he said. “On Wednesday, May 15, I was told about it. At that very moment, I demanded that my office ensure that the public was informed, and they were informed appropriately.”

Of “this matter,” there would be 24 questions this afternoon for the Prime Minister. He would stand and respond to 22 of those questions. He would directly answer maybe nine or ten.

“Mr. Speaker,” Mr. Mulcair asked with his second opportunity, “when did the Prime Minister first speak with Nigel Wright about Mike Duffy’s expenses?”

Mr. Harper did not seem to directly answer this, so Mr. Mulcair restated the question and added a third. “How many times,” he wondered of the Prime Minister, “did he speak with Nigel Wright in the week preceding his resignation?”

Mr. Harper seemed to hear an insinuation that displeased him. “Mr. Speaker, if the leader of the NDP is suggesting that I had any information to the contrary from Mr. Wright prior to this, that is completely false,” the Prime Minister declared. “I learned of this on May 15 and immediately made this information public, as I have said many times.”

Mr. Mulcair leaned forward and attempted to clarify for the Prime Minister what was occurring here. “Mr. Speaker, we are asking very simple, straightforward questions and the Prime Minister is not answering them. That is the problem. Canadians want answers.”

In fairness to the Prime Minister, this is not generally what Question Period is used for.

Mr. Mulcair wondered what instructions Mr. Harper had given to Mr. Wright or the members of his cabinet as it pertained to Mr. Duffy’s expenses. Mr. Harper said that he had given no such instructions.

Now Mr. Trudeau picked up the questioning. “Will the Prime Minister,” the Liberal leader wondered, “commit to releasing all records, emails, documents and correspondence relating to any arrangement between Mr. Wright and Mr. Duffy?”

The Prime Minister now responded as if this question had not just been asked. “Mr. Speaker, the arrangement in question that the leader speaks to was of course between Mr. Wright and Mr. Duffy,” Mr. Harper explained. “It is a matter of examination by the ethics commissioners in each chamber of this Parliament, and obviously, should we be asked to produce any kind of information, we would be happy to do so.”

Mr. Trudeau helpfully clarified the words he had spoken a moment earlier—”Mr. Speaker, we are asking for that information”—then restated his question and added a request that Mr. Wright’s cheque be tabled too. Mr. Harper did not respond directly, but deferred again to the ethics commissioner and the Senate ethics officer.

“Will the Prime Minister commit,” Mr. Trudeau asked, “to having everyone involved in this affair, including himself, testify about their involvement in a public forum, under oath?”

Mr. Harper did not directly answer. “Mr. Speaker, the facts here are very straightforward,” the Prime Minister claimed before pronouncing shame on Mr. Trudeau’s open acknowledgement of the current seat distribution in the Senate.

Back then to Mr. Mulcair who wondered if Mr. Harper had ever spoken to Senator Carolyn Stewart Olsen about this matter? ”As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, no, I did not,” Mr. Harper said.

Did the Prime Minister, Mr. Mulcair wondered, ever discuss this matter with his cabinet? Mr. Harper shook his head, grimaced and declined to answer directly.

When, Mr. Mulcair wondered, did the Prime Minister become aware of an agreement with Mr. Wright? Mr. Harper explained that it was May 15.

Who, Mr. Mulcair wondered, had spoken with Mr. Duffy about withholding information from auditors? Mr. Harper shrugged and shook his head. “Mr. Speaker, I have no information to that effect,” he pleaded.

Mr. Mulcair turned more specific. “Mr. Speaker, Mike Duffy wrote in an email that after being paid $90,000, he ‘stayed silent on the orders of the Prime Minister’s Office.’ Who told Mike Duffy to remain silent?”

Mr. Harper shook his head, turned up his palms and again pleaded ignorance. “Mr. Speaker, these are not matters that I am privy to.”

Mr. Mulcair stood for his 12th question. “Mr. Speaker, once Mike Duffy received the $90,000 from the Prime Minister’s Office, he stopped co-operating with Deloitte, which was the auditor in the file,” he reviewed. “Was that part of the deal with Mike Duffy?”

Mr. Harper now quibbled with Mr. Mulcair’s premise—the cheque in question had not transferred money from the Prime Minister’s Office, but from Mr. Wright, Mr. Harper explained. “Get your facts straight!” a voice from the Conservative side heckled in Mr. Mulcair’s direction.

Mr. Mulcair then quibbled with Mr. Harper’s distinction before adding two new questions. “Do they have a copy of the cheque? Has the Prime Minister or anyone in his office seen that cheque?”

Mr. Harper returned to the matter over which he and Mr. Mulcair were quibbling, failing to answer directly the questions now asked. Apparently taking that as a no to both of his questions, Mr. Mulcair piled on as the Conservatives moaned and groaned. “Mr. Speaker, if he has never seen the cheque, how can the Prime Minister rise in this House and tell us that it is a personal cheque? How does he know that it is not from a trust account? How does he know that if he has never seen the cheque?”

Mr. Harper deferred to Mr. Wright. “Mr. Speaker, this is a matter of public record, as Mr. Wright himself has said. I can certainly assure the member there is no such money that has gone out of our office or out of PMO budget.”

Back to Mr. Trudeau. Of the Prime Minister’s insistence that he had known nothing of a deal between Mr. Wright and Mr. Duffy before May 15, the Liberal leader noted that CTV had reported the existence of a deal on the night of May 14 and that the Prime Minister’s Office. Mr. Harper again asserted that he knew nothing of a cheque until the morning of May 15.

Why then, Mr. Trudeau wondered, had it taken Mr. Harper another five days to dismiss his chief of staff?

“Mr. Speaker, by his own admission, Mr. Wright made a very serious error. For that, he has accepted full, sole responsibility,” Mr. Harper reviewed. “He has agreed to resign. He is subject to an investigation and examination by the Ethics Commissioner, on which I anticipate he will be fully co-operative.”

Mr. Trudeau, apparently unconvinced by the official timeline, now conveyed his indignation. Mr. Harper then attempted a remarkable claim of simplicity and clarity. “Mr. Speaker, the facts here are reasonably simple whether or not the opposition or anybody else particularly likes them,” he declared. “The facts are simple and they are clear.”

Except for the fact that so many of the facts about whatever happened here remain unclear, this much might actually be true. Mr. Wright, as Mr. Harper explained, assisted in the repayment of Mr. Duffy’s expenses. That repayment, Mr. Harper maintained, was not something of which he was aware until May 15. Those might well be actual facts. But it is still everything else about this affair that has yet to be explained, every other question that remains to be answered.

After two more questions from Mr. Mulcair—one about the involvement of a PMO lawyer, the other about the matter of Pamela Wallin—the New Democrats sent up Nathan Cullen to, once again, play the part of Lt. Daniel Kaffee.

“Let me remind the Prime Minister of what he said when he was in opposition,” Mr. Cullen graciously offered before proceeding with a dramatic reading. “He said, “The Prime Minister personally ordered adscam done and chose the people who executed the plan. At the very least he fostered an attitude within the party, chose the managers who committed these crimes and completely and utterly failed to exercise any oversight, supervision or leadership. In the end it does not really matter. He is the leader and a leader is responsible for the actions of the people he leads.’ ”

Mr. Cullen took a step forward and put the question. “Does he still agree with these comments?”

The New Democrats stood and cheered. Mr. Harper remained seated. Instead, it was James Moore who stood, the Heritage Minister now apparently seeing a chance to audition for a cabinet promotion before this summer’s shuffle.

“Mr. Speaker, we certainly agree that Canadians expect and deserve accountability. That is why the Prime Minister, both in his entire term as prime minister and again here today, has shown accountability and leadership that Canadians have come to expect,” Mr. Moore proclaimed, pointing with both index fingers. “The Leader of the Opposition asked questions. The Prime Minister has answered.”

Huzzah. By that most basic standard of accountability—and excluding those questions which the Prime Minister did not directly answer—everything here is finally fine.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/stephen-harper-pleads-ignorance-and-claims-clarity/feed/65What the hell happened here?http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-commons-what-the-hell-happened-here/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-commons-what-the-hell-happened-here/#commentsThu, 23 May 2013 21:45:37 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=387215The Commons: Of Wright and Duffy and the Senate, there is only one question that needs be answered

“The Senate audit report contradicted this and concluded that Senator Duffy’s primary residence was Ottawa not P.E.I. Yet when the final report was tabled, this key paragraph had been erased,” the New Democrat now charged. “Last night, we learned that the Prime Minister’s former communications director, now a senator, helped whitewash the Duffy report. Can the government tell us whether anyone in the PMO was aware that this report contradicted their Prime Minister?”

In an alternate universe, of course, Mike Duffy was never appointed to the Senate to represent Prince Edward Island. In a third, and even better, universe, there was never even a Senate to which to appoint him.

It was here James Moore’s duty to stand and lead the government response, John Baird apparently elsewhere recovering from having to stand 23 times yesterday.

“Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that the Senate report does reflect the findings of the auditor, the auditor, by the way, that both the opposition and the government agreed should be brought in, an independent, outside auditor,” Mr. Moore offered with the first of 22 responses for him this afternoon. “The report reflected that finding. I understand, of course, that new questions have been raised. That is why the Senate is looking at the matter again, and that is also why the Ethics Commissioner is looking into this, as is the Office of the Senate Ethics Commission.”

“These questions are being raised,” Mr. Moore continued. “They are being put forward. They will be answered.”

It is nice to think that they might, because as of now there are almost only questions without answers. And while new questions do indeed continue to be raised about this and that and who did or did not do whatever however, the question that has been with us since nine days ago when CTV reported the existence of some kind of arrangement between Mr. Duffy and Nigel Wright remains primary.

What the hell happened here?

It is the Prime Minister’s assurance that he knew nothing of the cheque until it became a matter of national news. But the questions of what the Prime Minister knew and when he knew it are actually quite secondary. First we need to know what it is that he could have theoretically known about. And right now we don’t know that.

Was there an agreement between Mr. Wright and Mr. Duffy? If so, what did it entail? If Mr. Wright wrote a cheque, why did Mr. Duffy take out a loan? Did Mr. Duffy take out a loan? Why did Mr. Wright write a cheque? If there was an agreement, did it involve anything more than money? And was anyone else involved in the discussions between Mr. Wright and Mr. Duffy?

In the absence of anything like clarity about much of anything, we are left to parse every sentence of every statement uttered or released by anyone who might be even vaguely connected to whatever it is that might have occurred. This is no way to live.

“Were any lawyers in the PMO aware of what Nigel Wright and Senator Duffy were cooking up?” Mr. Christopherson begged awhile later.

“Mr. Speaker, we are not aware of any legal agreement between Mr. Wright and Mr. Duffy. It is as simple as that,” Mr. Moore responded, not answering the question at all.

Even in not providing any new insight to what the hell happened here, Mr. Moore managed to stumble. “Nigel Wright says that he acted solely,” Mr. Moore said at one point. But if Mr. Wright has said this, it is not clear where. In the statement issued upon his resignation, Mr. Wright said only that he had not informed the Prime Minister of whatever it was he did.

The Liberals and New Democrats seem interested in an email of February 20. The Liberals seem to believe the government is in possession of it. But if the government does possess it, it’s not saying.

“Mr. Speaker, first things first,” Mr. Moore declared in response to some parsing of the Prime Minister’s comments yesterday by the NDP’s Craig Scott. “As I have said a few times now, the independent Ethics Commissioner is looking into this. Before my honourable colleague starts handing out these kinds of assessments, he might want to wait for that report to come back. That is first.”

Waiting seems a rather unsatisfactory option here.

“Second of all, of course, we agree with the leadership that the Prime Minister has shown in ensuring that taxpayers’ money is spent in a responsible way not only in the Senate but also in the House, and also by his staff,” Mr. Moore continued. “What Nigel Wright did was wrong. The Prime Minister was very clear about that. When he offered his resignation, the Prime Minister accepted it immediately because Canadians need to know that they have a prime minister that they can trust with their money, and they do.”

This did not seem to convince the NDP’s Nathan Cullen.

“The government is patting itself on the back when Canadians want answers. They are fed up with these non-answers, carefully parsed words and double speak from Conservatives,” the opposition House leader ventured. “Conservatives are now so desperate that they trust Liberal senators to get to the bottom of this scandal. We have asked for legal documents, but maybe all along we should have been asking for the illegal documents as well.”

Mr. Cullen offered a question and a plea.

“Did the Prime Minister ask Nigel Wright or Carolyn Stewart Olsen to look into the scandal about Mike Duffy? Enough with the spin, just give us a straight answer, for once,” he begged, chopping his hand.

In lieu of an answer, Mr. Moore offered something of a meditation on the realities of parliamentary democracy.

“As we have said, Mr. Speaker, no matter what it is that we say, the reality is the opposition is going to attack,” he lamented. “What is important here for taxpayers is that there is a process in place to examine all these questions, again, not just in 30-second exchanges in the House of Commons.”

And so perhaps any and all documents related to this matter could be tabled in the House. And perhaps we could all agree that Mr. Wright should be invited to testify under oath before a parliamentary committee for a few hours or however long it takes to understand precisely what the hell happened here.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-commons-what-the-hell-happened-here/feed/13The Commons: The Conservatives run out of answershttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-commons-the-conservatives-run-out-of-answers/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-commons-the-conservatives-run-out-of-answers/#commentsWed, 22 May 2013 22:10:44 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=386552And Pat Martin wonders where it all went wrong

The afternoon was not without new clarification. Or at least an attempt at such.

Picking up where yesterday had left off, Thomas Mulcair endeavoured to sort out the precise value of John Baird’s assurance that the matter of Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy had been referred to two independent authorities.

“Mr. Speaker, yesterday afternoon, 11 times the Minister of Foreign Affairs said that the Duffy affair was going to be investigated by independent authorities, independent bodies, independent officers. When my colleague, the House Leader of the Official Opposition asked him what those were, he could not give an answer,” Mr. Mulcair recounted. “Twice during the afternoon the Prime Minister’s Office said that they were referring to the Senate’s Ethics Officer. Later it corrected that to say that it is the Senate committee, the same one that whitewashed Mike Duffy the first time, that is carrying out the investigation.”

“Does the minister not realize,” Mr. Mulcair asked, “that is about as credible as Paul Martin asking Jean Chrétien to investigate the sponsorship scandal?”

The New Democrats enjoyed this reference and stood to applaud their man.

Mr. Baird now stood to quote himself. “What I did say yesterday was, and I quote: ‘Furthermore, this matter has been referred to two independent bodies for review,’ which is nothing like what he just said,” Mr. Baird explained, seeming to stress the word referred.

So… there?

It is not actually clear what this should clarify, although, as it turns out, it now seems the Senate Ethics Officer is indeed reviewing the matter. So there’s that. Unfortunately, there is not much else on offer. Or, rather, not much else that the government seems either willing or able to offer.

“Mr. Speaker, yesterday afternoon the Minister of Foreign Affairs said that we were referring to some form of legal document that he was not aware of and that his understanding is that no such document exists,” Mr. Mulcair pressed with his third opportunity, speaking slowly and deliberately. “There is a trust document. There is a cheque. Will the Conservatives let the public see the trust document and the cheque?”

Mr. Baird apparently did not see any reason to acknowledge any such kind of possible distinction. “Mr. Speaker, again, what I said was that there was no legal document with which had been referred to in this House by members of the opposition on a number of occasions,” he said. “I said that our understanding was that there was no such legal document. No one in the government is aware of such a legal document.”

Nathan Cullen, the NDP House leader, now broadened the matter. “Can the Conservatives say definitively that there were no documents in the Prime Minister’s Office that related to the Mike Duffy and Nigel Wright scandal?” he wondered. “To be clear: no emails, no memos, no notes. Yes or no?”

In response to that simple query, Mr. Baird offered praise for the ethics commissioner. “This matter has been referred to her and the government is prepared to fully co-operate as she looks into this issue,” the Foreign Affairs Minister assured before repeating his understanding that a “legal agreement” does not exist.

In fact, the problem for the government here is that there is very little to parse. There are only questions here that need be answered and allegations that need be addressed.

If this has hit the government harder than anything in its seven years in office, it is possibly for similar reasons. This matter of Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy is not a matter of simple pork (the G8 Legacy Fund), nor complicated accounting and procurement (the F-35), nor electioneering (In-and-Out), nor the conditions of third-world prisons in a war zone (the Afghan detainee controversy). It is neither arcane (prorogation), nor legislative (omnibus budget bills), nor parliamentary (the 2011 finding of contempt), nor merely a matter of expensive orange juice (Bev Oda). It is, instead, the stuff of primetime television drama: the allegations are the stuff of entitlement, privilege, corruption and the evasion of justice. It is an episode of The Good Wife, if perhaps not a particularly good episode of The Good Wife. Less entertaining, but allegedly real.

Unfortunately for Mr. Harper, there seem few answers on the government side.

“We know now that the Conservatives on the Senate Committee on Internal Economy used their majority to doctor the final report on Senator Duffy’s expenses,” Justin Trudeau charged with his first opportunity. “Can anybody on that side of the House tell us who gave the order to whitewash the report on Senator Duffy?”

Mr. Baird apparently could not.

“If Wright is solely responsible,” Mr. Trudeau wondered, “when will the government call him to testify under oath to his malfeasance?”

Mr. Baird could only offer assurances that Mr. Harper was unaware of what Mr. Wright was up to and that Mr. Wright had done the right thing in resigning.

“Who on that committee was part of the $90,000 whitewash,” Charlie Angus asked of the Senate’s internal economy committee and the promise of a new review of Mike Duffy’s expenses, “and will they be allowed to partake in this new review or will the government do the right thing and call in the police?”

Mr. Baird deferred to the House ethics commissioner.

Later, Mr. Trudeau returned to his feet to continue posing questions. “Will the government produce the cheque?” he asked.

Mr. Baird reviewed the government’s version of events and deferred to the ethics commissioner.

Mr. Trudeau raised the possible existence of an email he seemed to think the Prime Minister’s Office was in possession of. “Will the government commit to releasing this and any other email or document, electronic or otherwise, that relates to the secret deal between the PMO and Senator Duffy?”

Mr. Baird deferred to the ethics commissioner.

Twenty-three times Mr. Baird stood this afternoon, mostly bereft of the sort of answers that might begin to settle any of this. Even his assurances were problematic. “I understand that Mr. Wright has taken sole responsibility for the decision he made on the repayment and his actions. He immediately submitted his resignation and it was immediately accepted,” Mr. Baird explained at one point, a version of the timing that seems to clash with the public record and anonymous supposition.

In the middle of the day, at the end of its line of questioning, the New Democrats sent up Pat Martin, who proceeded to do as Pat Martin does.

“Mr. Speaker, the minister is going for cocky when he should be going for contrition,” he chided Mr. Baird. “A little less swagger and a little more Jimmy Swaggart would be in order.”

This was possibly one of the finer lines in the history of this place, even if the Foreign Affairs Minister did not seem too swaggering this day.

Mr. Martin furrowed his brow and gestured with both hands to act out his sermon.

“They rode into Ottawa on their high horse of accountability, and all we have to show for it is the mess that horse left,” he quipped. “They should take their Federal Accountability Act and run it through that horse and throw it on their roses for all the good it has ever done us.”

He might’ve stopped there, but he did offer a pair of rhetorical question for the sake of the record.

“My question for the minister is simple: When did it all go so terribly wrong?” he wondered. “When did they jettison integrity and honesty and accountability for the sake of political expediency?”

The New Democrats stood to cheer this and even Liberals applauded, Mr. Trudeau thumping the top of his desk in appreciation.

Last week, Thomas Mulcair recalled, it was discovered that the Conservatives had lost track of $3.1 billion. The Auditor General, Mr. Mulcair declared, has regularly suggested that the Conservatives be more transparent. And so what, Mr. Mulcair wondered, have the Conservatives done to date to find that $3.1 billion.

Jason Kenney, leading the Conservatives this day, was unimpressed.

“Mr. Speaker, as usual,” Mr. Kenney lamented, “the question of the honourable Leader of the Opposition is not fair.”

The Auditor General, Mr. Kenney explained, had said that the money hadn’t been used in a way in which it should not have been. Thus, it is all good.

Mr. Mulcair, mostly eschewing his notes to engage the government side directly and with the benefit of something the government seems unable to account for, was confidently unpersuaded.

“Mr. Speaker, what the Auditor General actually said was, ‘Information to explain the difference of $3.1 billion between the funding allocated and the amount reported spent was not available,’ ” Mr. Mulcair reported. ”I will get back to our question for the Conservatives. They love to snap their suspenders, claiming to be good administrators of the government purse, so let them explain to us where the missing $3.1 billion is.”

Across the way, Peter Van Loan brandished his suspenders proudly.

“Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition knows full well that nothing is missing,” Mr. Kenney ventured.

Quite right. The money is not missing, it is just that no one seems to know precisely for certain what happened to it.

“He knows,” Mr. Kenney continued, “that the Auditor General said, ‘We didn’t find anything that gave us cause for concern that money was used in any way that it should not have been.’ ”

Indeed. The Auditor General seems not to have found any cause for concern, save for the concern he raised about what he could not find.

“He knows,” Mr. Kenney concluded, “that all funds expended by the government are tabled in the public accounts in this House, and that every dollar is approved by Parliament through the estimates process. Perhaps the member needs a remedial course in public accounting.”

So there.

But so here the government side had invited an obvious rejoinder.

The questions persisted and Tony Clement now concurred with Mr. Kenney’s assurances. “He confirmed,” Mr. Clement said of the Auditor General, “at committee that the anti-terrorism fund that he was reviewing was purely an internal government reporting process and that the shortcomings, which we acknowledge, did not prevent parliamentarians or Canadians from scrutinizing spending through the estimates process and through the public accounts process. Those are the facts.”

And lest there be any doubt about the extent of the disclosure and transparency, Mr. Clement next listed the years for which the New Democrats might consult the estimates and public accounts. “Mr. Speaker, the answers to the honourable member’s questions are found in the public accounts and the estimates in the years 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005. 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009,” he offered in response to the NDP’s Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe. “Those were tabled before this chamber. They were debated by parliamentarians. Either her or her predecessors took part in those debates. It is a matter of public record and the Auditor General’s findings speak for themselves.”

And so, you might wonder, if the estimates and public accounts explain what became of that $3.1 billion, why does not someone simply consult the estimates and public accounts, put together an accounting of the fate of that $3.1 billion and release that accounting publicly? That, you might think, would seem an obvious solution.

At some point in the time it took the House to proceed through another 20 questions and 20 responses, this apparently occurred to the New Democrats. And with the 32nd question of the afternoon, Nathan Cullen thus returned to Mr. Clement’s explanation.

“Mr. Speaker, the President of the Treasury Board was up earlier today saying that spending on public security and anti-terrorism was in the documents tabled in the House from 2001 to 2010,” the NDP House leader recounted. “We went and checked all the public accounts from 2001 to 2010 and the words ‘public security and anti-terrorism’ do not appear anywhere.”

“Mr. Speaker, the member knows, or should know, that each department, every year, must table in its public accounts each item of spending in the public accounts. That is legally obligated. That is what each department does,” Mr. Clement attempted to explain. “If the honourable member wants to play word games he can do so…”

The New Democrats laughed.

“… but the facts are there for parliamentarians,” Mr. Clement continued, now wagging his finger at the official opposition. “If his caucus members from the years from 2001 to 2009 did not ask the right questions…”

The New Democrats laughed again.

“… then that is their problem, not the problem on this side of the House.”

If there is an answer to this odd episode, this is likely not it. But if Mr. Clement feels the New Democrats have somehow failed Canadians, he is surely welcome to answer now the questions they should have asked then. Or perhaps, as has been suggested, this moment calls for something like an independent officer whose job it is to provide budgetary analysis to Parliament.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-commons-it-is-the-ndps-fault-tony-clement-doesnt-know-where-that-3-billion-went/feed/21The Commons: The silly and the hallowedhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-commons-the-silly-and-the-hallowed/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-commons-the-silly-and-the-hallowed/#commentsWed, 24 Apr 2013 22:28:51 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=376631An hour and a half in the life of the House of Commons

At 2pm, the Speaker’s parade—a ceremonial photo op, a silly show of hallowed tradition—proceeded down the West corridor of Centre Block toward the House of Commons. Preceded by one marching guard and flanked by three more—To protect the Speaker from what? A sneak attack by the Queen?—strode the sergeant-at-arms, carrying the large golden mace that must be in place for the House to conduct its business, and the Speaker and his clerks in their three-cornered hat and robes. Once the official party was safely inside, the large wooden doors were shut and the official business of the nation began for another day.

***

Something like a dozen reporters had gathered at the gallery door, anxiously waiting for the House to be called to order. This was something like four times the usual attendance—the larger crowd here in anticipation that one of the duly elected adults sent here to represent the people of this country might stand up in his or her place without having first obtained the permission of the party leader he or she is supposed to support.

There was a statement, from Conservative MP Kevin Sorenson, about World Meningitis Day. NDP MP Don Davies stood to “to bring to Parliament’s attention three occasions of great importance to the Vietnamese Canadian community.” Conservative MP Jay Aspin then stood to lament both the NDP leader’s comments about “Dutch disease” and recent mischaracterizations of FedNor. “I believe that the only disease is the disease the NDP leader has perpetrated,” Mr. Aspin explained. “That is his own foot in his mouth disease.”

From the government lobby, Mark Warawa, having announced to reporters hours earlier that he might take the Speaker up on the invitation to stand and be recognized, shuffled in tentatively with the aid of a cane, apparently having recently suffered a back injury of some kind. He took his seat and was soon visited by Tom Lukiwski, the government’s deputy House leader. Some kind of consultation ensued.

Mr. Lukiwski continued on and Mr. Warawa sat and talked and laughed with his seatmates, Jeff Watson, Merv Tweed and Brad Trost. The House proceeded with the other MPs who were due to speak. Mr. Warawa looked at the Speaker, smiled and gave a thumbs-up. Mr. Watson mocked like he was going to stand up. The NDP’s Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet stood and pronounced shame on the government’s reforms to employment insurance. And then, at 2:17pm, the House now running a bit late and Ms. Boutin-Sweet not quite finished, Mr. Warawa got up. Mr. Watson, in possession of Mr. Warawa’s cane, pretended to give him the hook. Leon Benoit came up from his seat in the front row to take an empty seat behind Mr. Warawa. Mr. Tweed and James Bezan, also seated nearby, pretended like they might seek to be recognized too. But here now the Speaker called on the member for Langley, apparently unchallenged. The backbenchers around him applauded.

“Mr. Speaker,” Mr. Warawa said, seemingly now with the official permission of his party, “I am honoured to be able to tell this House about an incredible event happening in beautiful Langley, British Columbia. It is called ‘Langley has Talent.’ ”

Something like 60 seconds later, he was done. Various Conservatives stood to applaud him.

And that was basically that.

A few moments later, as the NDP’s Charmaine Borg—still barely removed from university, now hectoring the government over privacy breaches—stood, as scheduled, to ask the fifth question of the afternoon, Independent MP Bruce Hyer and Green MP Elizabeth May rose in their spots in the back corner. Ms. May stood up again as Joyce Murray led the Liberal questions. And then again as Ms. Murray asked her second question. And then again as Bob Rae stood to ask a question. And then again and again. Eventually she was joined by Liberal MP Denis Coderre. Though Mr. Coderre noticeably did not jump up when it was a fellow Liberal who was due to ask a question.

That the Speaker would recognize Ms. May or Mr. Coderre when an MP of another party was due to speak seems unlikely, perhaps even unfair—the questions are dispersed among the parties and the independent MPs on a proportional basis. But then perhaps someday some frustrated backbencher might follow their lead and stand when another member of their own side is due to speak and thus force the Speaker to make a choice. On this day, as the Speaker reached the 25th question, the spot lately reserved for the first question from a Conservative, there was no Conservative who stood to challenge Calgary Centre’s Joan Crockatt. And so Ms. Crockatt was, as scheduled, free to remind the House that the government was tremendously supportive of the Keystone XL pipeline and to ask the parliamentary secretary for natural resources to “update us on the latest developments on this important project” and Dave Anderson was thus free, as scheduled, to decry the “narrow, ideologically driven, anti-trade, anti-development, anti-resource, anti-job agenda” of the NDP.

The Speaker might have yesterday allowed for the possibility of procedural revolution, but for at least today the revolutionaries—seekers of their most fundamental right—were quiet.

***

Amid the rote, there was some life in this place this day.

Of recent mucking about with the danger pay allotted to member of the military stationed in various parts of Afghanistan, the New Democrats had first sent up Elaine Michaud. And Defence Minister Peter MacKay had dismissed her concerns.

“I would ask the member to demonstrate her support and perhaps explain to the House why she continually votes against things like pay increases, education funds for families of deceased members of the Canadian Forces and funding for our Commonwealth war graves,” Mr. MacKay had charged, looking over in Ms. Michaud’s direction. ”We will take no lessons from members of the NDP who continually work and vote against the interests of the armed forces.”

That New Democrats have voted against Conservative legislation is something of a preoccupation for the Conservatives. If you voted against the budget, for instance, you voted against volunteer fighters. But a couple minutes, after Mr. MacKay had pronounced shame on the NDP’s Alexandre Boulerice over a six-year-old blog post about Vimy Ridge and the Conservatives had stood to applaud the minister’s effort, Jack Harris, the Newfoundland lawyer, had stood and wondered aloud if perhaps Mr. MacKay, as a member of the opposition, might have voted against military funding provided for in previous Liberal budget.

Mr. MacKay had been happy for the opportunity to mock. “Here is what we have,” he had said. “Now we have the defence critic for the NDP defending the abysmal record of the Liberal Party, a decade of darkness. He has his facts wrong on the history of the Liberal defence spending, just like his colleague from Quebec has the facts wrong on what happened at Vimy Ridge.”

Mr. MacKay had pointed this way and that and now he swiped his right hand. “The NDP is a joke on defence,” he had declared. The Conservatives, delighted, had stood to applaud and had called out for more.

“Mr. Speaker, it is always the same from the minister,” the NDP’s Jinny Sims had attempted to scold with the next opportunity, only to draw more applause from the Conservatives.

But now, later in the hour, it was Nathan Cullen on his feet. A bit too early in fact. Not, it seems, because he was attempting to join Ms. May and the standers, but because he had lost track of whose turn it was. When the Speaker called for Ralph Goodale, Mr. Cullen returned to his seat. A question and a response later, he was back up. And he was apparently prepared.

“Mr. Speaker, Canadians might be wondering what the Minister of National Defence’s record was on spending before he was the minister,” Mr. Cullen mused. “We went and checked. Lo and behold, it turns out he repeatedly voted against the military.”

“Woaahh!” mocked the New Democrats.

“No, no, it is true,” Mr. Cullen assured the disbelievers. “In 2004, he voted against $792 million for military operations in capital. He voted against $17 million for St. Anne’s (Veteran’s) Hospital.”

“Woaahh!” mocked the New Democrats.

“Against $600,000 for war veterans,” Mr. Cullen reported.

“Ohhh!” groaned the New Democrats.

“Can the minister not see through his own tortured logic,” Mr. Cullen wondered, looking over at Mr. MacKay, “so that he can finally admit that MPs can be opposed to his government’s agenda and still support Canada’s military?”

The New Democrats stood to applaud.

Mr. MacKay stood with a smile and stepped forward, nearly putting a foot out into the aisle. He proceeded to enthuse and gesture assuredly.

“Mr. Speaker, it is somewhat passing strange to hear members of the NDP defending the Liberal decade of darkness,” he mocked. “What I voted against, what many Conservatives, when we were in opposition, voted against was the unmitigated disaster that was the Liberal Party, the dismantling of the Canadian Forces. What we have seen as a government is unprecedented investment in the Canadian Forces, improved morale, new equipment, investments in bases and programs. This member and his party have been against all of those.”

The Conservatives stood to applaud.

Mr. Cullen returned to his feet.

“Mr. Speaker, his answer to the decade of darkness was to cut danger pay to our troops in Afghanistan. Fascinating,” the NDP House leader shot back.

The New Democrats applauded. Mr. Cullen returned to his piece of paper.

“He also voted against $6.3 million for a Canadian Forces health information system, against $2 million to upgrade Goose Bay’s airfield, against $22 million for disability pensions, and he voted against $49 million for public security and anti-terrorism measures,” he recounted.

“Woaahh!” mocked the New Democrats.

“I could do this all day, but I will allow the minister one more opportunity. He must now understand that we can hold government to account,” Mr. Cullen concluded jabbing the air in the general direction of the government, “vote against their bad budgets, and support our brave men and women.”

Up came the New Democrats to cheer once more.

Mr. Cullen slammed the paper on his desk as he returned to his seat. Mr. MacKay stood and leaned forward, placing his right hand on his own desk and his left hand on the adjacent desk. The minister stared at Mr. Cullen. Mr. Cullen stared at the minister, stern-faced and nodding.

Mr. MacKay straightened up and began his response.

“Mr. Speaker, let me get this straight,” he said, putting his hands together and then furrowing his brow. “This member is now suggesting that because, while in opposition, this NDP government—”

The New Democrats stood and cheered at their apparent promotion. Mr. Cullen shook Mr. Mulcair’s hand and Mr. Mulcair pretended to be quite honoured.

The Speaker called for order and then returned the floor to the minister.

“While in opposition, while they are continuing to oppose these unprecedented investments in the Canadian Forces, somehow this justifies the New Democrats’ ongoing resistance to investments in programs, in equipment, in personnel,” Mr. MacKay now offered, somewhat confusingly. “Somehow that twisted logic justifies their opposition to all of the wonderful things we have done for the Canadian Forces.”

The House moved on and 20 minutes later the time for questions had expired. Mr. MacKay stood then on a point of order. He sought, apparently, to continue via clarification the discussion between himself and Mr. Cullen. Members of the opposition side shouted him down with cries of “debate!”—a debatable matter not being, by the ancient rules of this place, a point of order and this not being the time reserved for debate. Mr. MacKay returned to his seat and he and Mr. Cullen looked at each other and laughed.

***

In the foyer afterwards, there was much scurrying about. Liberal House leader Dominic LeBlanc arrived at a microphone to pronounce shame on a Conservative mailout the Liberals had obtained (apparently courtesy of a mysterious brown envelope).

“We were obviously surprised to find out that the Conservatives are now using taxpayers’ money to produce and distribute some of the negative attack ads that, previously at least, they had the decency to allow the Conservative Party to pay for,” Mr. LeBlanc explained.

Unfortunately for Mr. LeBlanc, the New Democrats had already been round with a mailout sent in the name of Bob Rae that criticized NDP MP Craig Scott and his legislation to revoke and replace the Clarity Act. And now a reporter was presenting this to Mr. LeBlanc and now Mr. LeBlanc was having to try to explain the difference between what he was complaining about and what his party seemed to have done.

“Well, it’s negative on the irresponsible policy of the NDP,” Mr. LeBlanc offered, expertly using this awkward moment to at least lambaste the New Democrats. “The NDP irresponsible policy is that the country could be broken up on a 50% plus one vote on an unclear question. We find it extremely irresponsible, the substance of the NDP’s view on things like the Clarity Act and the eventual possibility of another referendum in Quebec. We didn’t run a negative household or attacking a person and the experience of Mr. Scott or Mr. Scott’s person.”

A Conservative aide came by with an old Liberal mailout attacking the Prime Minister. Nearby, the questions persisted and so did Mr. LeBlanc.

“If I had written a ten-percenter to say that why does Mr. Scott pretend to be an effective parliamentarian when he only worked perhaps as a camp counselor or when he may have taught bungee jumping or where he once went river rafting in the state of Maine, that would have been a personal attack on Mr. Scott,” Mr. LeBlanc clarified. “If an NDP MP believes and Mr. Scott, the NDP MP, was in fact the person who brought in that completely ridiculous NDP bill to substitute the Clarity Act for some watered down, weak-kneed approach of the NDP to placate the nationalists in their caucus, Mr. Scott should answer for the substance of his reckless and silly private member’s bill. I’m not interested in him answering line by line the summer jobs he had.”

Mr. LeBlanc was then asked if perhaps some rule had been broken.

“Well, if there’s no rule that says you shouldn’t use taxpayers’ resources to distribute partisan attack ads, then we need to change the rules,” Mr. LeBlanc posited. “It’s pretty clear to us that the Conservatives were caught today by a distribution error in trying to use potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money to distribute a completely ridiculous attack ad where they show pictures of our leader, deliberately intended to be an unflattering silly attack ad and then are nice enough to include a series of rather silly texts that they can insert, cut and paste, to meet the House of Commons rules. So if you’re asking me is it the right thing to do to waste taxpayers’ money on partisan attack ads, the answer surely is no.”

An hour and a half after the Speaker’s parade had summoned the tradition and the generational responsibility that binds this place together, here was something timeless. Here were the timeless qualities that have filled the air between these walls for decades and will, with any luck, for centuries to come: outrage, scorn, contradiction, belief and principle.

Earlier this afternoon, NDP MP Megan Leslie rose in the House to speak to Mark Warawa’s question of privilege.

Megan Leslie: Mr. Speaker, I rise to add to the debate around the point of privilege of my colleague, the member for Langley.

Before I begin, I would like to say that I worked with the member for Langley when he was the chair of the environment committee and I do respect his work as a member of Parliament in the House.

Saying that, I categorically oppose the content of the motion that he wishes to bring forward. The NDP has been very clear about its support for a woman’s right to choose and when it comes to women’s reproductive health. With that foundation, I would like to speak on the substance of the member’s point of privilege and add to that debate with the perspective of an NDP member of the House.

The NDP does not vet its members’ statements. Our statements are allotted and organized by the our whip and it is done in a fair and equitable manner so that all MPs have the opportunity to highlight the important issues going on across the country, as well as in their ridings. We also have a roster system when it comes to our daily statements, which we have had for the last decade.

We used to only have one statement a day when we were a smaller party. We have always held some of those statements for different reasons. For example, on Wednesdays, we hold a statement to make a statement on women’s issues. We hold back some other statements for specific days, for example, a day of mourning for injured workers or Remembrance Day. We also hold back the occasional statement so that we can respond to issues arising that day, which are time specific, or to correct serious and deceitful accusations made by the government. We do have that kind of system.

What we are seeing right now, what is happening within the Conservative caucus over this issue, is a number of Conservatives are rising to speak and are speaking out against their own internal process. This speaks directly to the Prime Minister’s misunderstanding and disrespect of how Parliament needs to work for MPs and for Canadians.

First of all, the Conservatives ignore the voices of the oppositions and their own MPs. Second, they stifle attempts by our officers of Parliament to hold them to account. Third, they shut down the ability of MPs to speak by shutting down debate. That is disrespectful to Parliament.

I do not believe that this is a question of left versus right; it is a question of right versus wrong.

The NDP respects Parliament. New Democrats respect freedom of speech and I think that can be seen even at our very roots when we look at our party conventions, for example. This past weekend, we had a party convention and we debated requiring a two third majority of Parliament vote to consent to prorogation. We also debated and discussed having a two third majority to move parliamentary committees in to camera. These motions have not yet been adopted and they are not yet on our official policy, but it shows that there is a strong culture of respect for Parliament in our party and within our caucus.

We do respect the right of members of Parliament to use their S. O. 31s, or their statements, to express views on the topics of their choosing. This is their right. We oppose the abuse of using normal parliamentary tools and procedures. We oppose the Conservatives writing the book on lack of judgment disrespect for this institution.

The NDP has long been champion of the rights of free speech in the House, as well as for fair debate on legislation. It is against, for example, the government’s limiting of time for debate on important issues in the House, whether it is through time allocation or closure. New Democrats put forward an opposition day motion in November 2011 that would have required the government to justify its use of time allocation or closure–

An hon. member: Stop politicizing it. Talk to the issue.

Megan Leslie: Mr. Speaker, it is remarkable that I am getting heckled on a point of privilege. It really is. The Conservatives know no bounds.

We did actually put forward an opposition day motion in 2011 to require the government to justify its use of time allocation or closure before they could be put to the House. The Speaker would have criteria to follow to ensure that this stifling of debate could be not become as routinized as it has become under the government.

Those are my perspectives as an NDP member on this side of the House. I hope that the Speaker takes those comments and considerations into account when he is making his decision.

Ms. Leslie sort of allows what Nathan Cullen has kind of acknowledged: that the NDP seems to handle its last allotted statement with some specific purpose. Starting, by my recollection, in the fall of 2011, the NDP has taken to using at least some of the time for statements by members for partisan purposes. This week, for instance, they used each of their last statements to congratulate themselves or attack the government.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-backbench-spring-megan-leslie-comments/feed/9Making Parliament matterhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/making-parliament-matter/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/making-parliament-matter/#commentsThu, 11 Apr 2013 14:02:39 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=370397The Agenda convenes a panel to discuss the state of the House

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/making-parliament-matter/feed/12Nathan Cullen: ‘What is happening in the House is not a game’http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/nathan-cullen-what-is-happening-in-the-house-is-not-a-game/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/nathan-cullen-what-is-happening-in-the-house-is-not-a-game/#commentsThu, 28 Mar 2013 15:48:36 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=365695More support for Mark Warawa's question of privilege

Earlier this morning, NDP House leader Nathan Cullen and Conservative MP Kyle Seeback added their support to Mark Warawa’s question of privilege.

Nathan Cullen. Mr. Speaker, first, I appreciate the time today for allowing me to offer a few additional comments on what I believe is an important issue for Parliament and an important issue for Canadians.

On March 26, the member for Langley rose to say that his rights as a member of Parliament had been infringed upon when he was prevented by the whip of his own party to deliver a statement in this House, a statement that, in parliamentary terms, we call an “S. O. 31”. Much like the terms “omnibus bills”, “prorogation” and “closure”, the Conservative Party continues to offer what I believe is an unintentional lesson in how parliamentary systems work and sometimes can be abused.

House of Commons Standing Order 31 says a member may be recognized to make a statement for not more than one minute every day, before question period, more commonly we refer to these as “members’ statements”.

I believe that there are two central questions that face you, Mr. Speaker, and face this House.

One concerns the difference between Standing Orders of the rules by which this place is guided and the conventions, or practices, that have been evolved over time to fit changing circumstances. One set is hard and fast rules that we must abide by; the other, the conventions, is something that we interpret from time to time and certainly change from time to time.

The second central question is your role as Speaker in trying to help ease the natural tension which I believe exists between members and their political parties and an MP’s right to speak in Parliament.

According to O’Brien and Bosc, on page 254 of the Standing Orders are “the permanent written rules under which the House regulates its proceedings“. They are the rules we are bound by and they are there to protect Parliament and MPs.

However, O’Brien and Bosc also tells us, on the very next page, that “interpretations given to the older rules have been adapted over time to fit the modern context”.

Here, we must emphasize the original intent of members’ statements. They are a key tool that members of Parliament have to bring forward the matters of their constituents. They are often used to bring awareness to the efforts of local leaders in improving the lives of their communities. They are used to celebrate the achievements of their constituents and the work that they do. They are used to honour significant milestones and highlight important events going on in our ridings. They are also used to bring to the attention of the House serious local, national or international questions that require the attention of all Canadians.

Disturbingly, that original intent has almost been entirely lost on the Conservative side of this House.

The Conservatives have turned their statements by members into partisan attack ads, using their allotted statements before question period primarily to attack the New Democrats and our leader. They use S. O. 31 as a way to launch a coordinated, concentrated attack against the official opposition each and every day instead of talking about issues that really matter to the citizens who elect them.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to refer you to a very good analysis done by Glen McGregor, which appeared on March 26 in the Ottawa Citizen. This analysis of statements made by the government MPs in the House since the last election shows that the NDP and our leader are overwhelmingly the most popular topics for Conservatives to use in these statements. While we are certainly flattered by all the attention from the government members in this practice, it has obviously created some serious conflicts within the government caucus and has brought further harm to the reputation of Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that like me, you will not fail to see the irony in comparing the current situation with some of the principles of the original Reform Party manifesto. In that document, the party stated:

We believe in accountability of elected representatives to the people who elect them, and that the duty of elected members to their constituents should supersede their obligations to their political parties.

Let me emphasize that at one point, many members opposite believed that the duty of elected members to their constituents should supersede their obligations to their political parties.

Not only is this an abuse of statements by members, but it creates a serious and growing tension, on the one hand, between members’ of Parliament need to represent their constituents and to express themselves freely, and on the other hand, with their responsibility to their political party. That is of course intensified if the party has no respect whatsoever for that member’s individual rights.

Standing Order 31 tells us that “The Speaker may order a Member to resume his or her seat if, in the opinion of the Speaker, improper use is made of this Standing Order”. I know that in the past, Mr. Speaker, you and your predecessors have been hesitant to impose too heavily when it comes to the proper and improper use of this Standing Order and the improper or proper use of statements, but the situation we are faced with here brings new light to the tensions I have just described.

Recently the Chief Government Whip used a hockey analogy, however poorly applied in this case, and equated his role as whip of the Conservative Party to that of a hockey coach, deciding which player goes on the ice. He decided that the Speaker was basically a referee and that it is not your place as referee, Mr. Speaker, to interfere with his choices as coach. I simply offer this: If a coach insists on only sending so-called “goons” onto the ice to simply pick fights each and every day, there is no question that the referee will intervene to give some hope that an actual hockey game might be played.

However, the analogy should stop here, because what is happening in the House is not a game. This is the House of Commons, where we, as parliamentarians, must deal everyday with complex matters that have a direct impact on the lives of the Canadians who have elected us, who trust us to manage the affairs of this country. I believe that by changing the nature of statements and using them to mindlessly attack the official opposition, instead of using that time to raise the issues that matter to the people who have elected them, the Conservatives are clearly abusing this Standing Order.

Allow me to return to the assertion of the member for Langley that his rights and privileges as a member have been breached. It bears repeating and emphasizing that I do not agree with the attempt by the member for Langley to reopen the debate on abortion. The NDP will always promote and protect a woman’s right to choose, period. We are clear in our conviction and present ourselves unapologetically and unambiguously to Canadians in that way each and every election. However, whether one agrees or disagrees with the member for Langley is not at issue here. The issue is the need for members of Parliament to speak freely on behalf of those we seek to represent. We have two essential duties: holding the government to account; and speaking for those who have elected us to this place.O’Brien and Bosc, on page 89, explains that. It states:

By far the most important right afforded to members of the House is the exercise of freedom of speech in parliamentary proceedings.

In conclusion, without the right of members of Parliament to express themselves freely, our democratic institutions simply cannot function properly. The NDP recognizes this and has always allowed its members the opportunity to express themselves, arriving at a consensus through discussion, instead of imposing one through unilateral vision. There is always to be a natural tension in being part of any team, any party. The benefits of being in a party are weighed against the responsibility to that same party. That is our parliamentary Westminster system.

Mr. Speaker, you have a difficult task in judging this fine line, and I believe you will need the support and confidence of all parties in this place, whatever you decide. This is why I find this matter so important. I am looking forward to your ruling on this matter and on the matter of the protection of the freedom of speech of members of Parliament.

Kyle Seeback: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to provide some context that I was able to discover with respect to the evolution of members’ statements. I think it is important that we look to the history of members’ statement, as you decide and make a ruling on this important matter.

If we want to look at the history, we would start with the third report of the special committee on Standing Orders and procedures, November 4, 1982, found at issue 7, page 19. The committee says: Your committee is of the opinion that Standing Order 43 is being misused and that a substitute mechanism is required which would enable members to rise on matters of concern on a daily basis.

It goes on to say: Your committee believes that a new Standing Order is required which would enable members to make statements on current issues on a daily basis for the first 15 minutes of the sitting in a manner that would remove objections arising from the present practice.

Under the new recommended procedure, the 15 minutes preceding question period would be reserved for members other than ministers to raise matters of concern for the purpose of placing them on the record.

The Speaker would call them “members’ statements” as a routine proceeding, preceding question period.

And this is an important section. It says: Every member recognized by the Chair would be given a maximum of a minute and a half to state the matter he or she wishes to place on the record, and if appropriate appeal for a remedy.

That was the report from the committee. When this matter came before the House, the Hon. Yvon Pinard, president of the Privy Council, gave a long speech. I am going to deliver excerpts from that. He started off by saying: Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure and even greater satisfaction that I may present a motion in the House today which paves the way for parliamentary reform, a concept I have always cherished and a goal I have wanted to achieve.

Speaking of the reforms, which include a number of reforms in addition to removing Standing Order 43, it goes on to say: The proposed experiment, Mr. Speaker, is interesting and relevant for three reasons. First, it will help to upgrade the role played by members of Parliament.

I think that is important. It says: It will make Parliament more alive and more effective without eroding the right of the opposition to full debate.

Finally, the third reason why this experiment will be interesting is it will update Parliament to give it more respectability in the eyes of the Canadian people.

To summarize, the role of members of Parliament will be upgraded, Parliament will become more alive and more effective without infringing upon the rights of the opposition to full debate.

When he specifically talks about section 43, it goes on to say: We are doing away with that parliamentary oddity, Standing Order 43, a move which practically all hon. members fully endorse. It is a proceeding which no longer serves any useful purpose. Doing away with motions under Standing Order 43 is in itself a very positive step. Instead, members will each have 90 seconds to make a point rather than raise objections.

I think we should try it on an experimental basis. I am convinced that those who want that experiment to succeed will draw maximum benefits from the 15-odd minutes before question period.

Here is another important section. It goes on to say: I hope that the Chair, mindful of the intent of the committee report, will recognize hon. members without any regard for party affiliation, and that the time available will be equally distributed between both sides.

I believe that it is clear what the intent of this was.

Certainly a convention has developed here in this House that lists are being submitted to the Speaker. My understanding, however, is that this convention developed for ease of reference of the Speaker. This was so the Speaker could easily recognize who was supposed to rise in their place and speak.

I do not believe that a convention that was arrived at to enable the Speaker to easily identify who should be speaking should trump a member’s right to speak in this House.

I want to also quote, at page 593 of O’Brien and Bosc where it says: Freedom of speech is one of the most important privileges enjoyed by Members of Parliament.

In the notes it goes on to say: “Freedom of speech enables members to speak in the House and its committees” and this is important, “to refer to any matter, to express any opinion and to say what they feel needs to said in the furtherance of the national interests and the aspirations of their constituents without inhibition or fear of legal prosecution”.

Mr. Speaker, if you cannot rise at all to speak, you certainly cannot enjoy freedom of speech which is one of the things that we consider to be sacrosanct in this place.

I want to finish by talking about the reference to playing on a team. We are a team and I am a proud member of my team. I say that without inhibition. I can also say that I have never had my right to speak interfered with. But if we want to talk about a team, my view would be that this is, certainly for backbench MPs, a house league team. We all get equal time in the House. We all get equal time to play.

I coach a house league hockey team. Every player gets the same chance to get on the ice and the same amount of time. Of course there are rep teams. There is a double A team and a triple A team, perhaps the parliamentary secretaries and the ministers. They are a special team and of course those coaches get to choose which of those players get to play and when. Then we could have no complaints because we are on those teams.

But if members are on the house league team and the coach decides they do not get the opportunity to play, what do they do? I would suggest, like the member for Langley did, they may have to go to the league to make an appeal to the league convenor and suggest “I did not get my time to play on the ice, convenor, I would like you to perhaps intervene”.

Mr. Speaker, this is a serious question. It is a question of importance to Parliament and those are my submissions and I look forward to your ruling.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/nathan-cullen-what-is-happening-in-the-house-is-not-a-game/feed/0The House of Commons gets its back uphttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-house-of-commons-gets-its-back-up/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-house-of-commons-gets-its-back-up/#commentsWed, 27 Mar 2013 01:27:01 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=365036Rajotte, Rae and Trost on the concerns of Mark Warawa

Conservative MP James Rajotte, asked after QP today whether Mark Warawa should have been able to give his statement to the House last Thursday.

I think members should be able to give the statements they want to give in the House, yes.

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae, speaking to reporters after QP.

I think that members should be freer to talk and should be freer to present their point of view but, you know, we’re dealing with a control freak government. I mean we’re dealing with a government that announces programs and then says now that we’ve announced the program we’ll start to discuss it with the provinces. I mean it’s the same philosophy that you see all the way through. So I don’t know, maybe if the members who are unhappy dressed up like pandas, the Prime Minister would pay them some attention … All I know is that I’ve consistently allowed free votes on private members’ bills. I’ve consistently indicated that I think we need to free the House up and I would have thought that the party of Preston Manning would want to do the same thing … that’s been one of the biggest changes that I’ve seen in my time in the House.

John Ivison reports that “20 or so” Conservative MPs met last night to discuss their concerns.

“The decision made by our own committee members, following orders from the highest office in the country, serves to euthanize any remaining principles of the Reform Party in our caucus, if we as members allow it to stand,” said one Conservative, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Star gathers comment from several MPs, including Conservative MP Brad Trost.

Conservative Brad Trost, the MP for Saskatoon—Humboldt, said he does not understand why his party will not let its MPs say whatever they want in their statements, given there is nothing to stop them from saying it outside the Commons. “Frankly, you guys (the media) don’t pay attention to all the ones that are spit out by the PMO at the end of the day anyway, so I don’t understand why we just can’t run through the order alphabetically the way it should be,” said Trost. “SO-31s should be the prerogative of the member. It’s just sort of bizarre why they just don’t live and let live,” Trost said.

Independent MP Bruce Hyer tells the Star he lost his speaking spot when he was set to announce his departure from the NDP caucus. After QP today, NDP House leader Nathan Cullen says the party works on a schedule that determines whose turn it is to give a statement and that the party doesn’t vet statements beforehand, except that the leadership sometimes “works with” whoever is delivering the last NDP slot (that statement is usually more partisan in tone).

NDP House leader Nathan Cullen has now released his proposal for improving decorum in the House. Here is the motion he hopes to put before the House.

That the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs be instructed to recommend changes to the Standing Orders, procedures and practices to increase the authority of the Speaker in order to impose disciplinary measures against Members who use harassment, threats, personal attacks, or extreme misrepresentation of facts or position in the House, particularly regarding Statements by Members and Oral Questions, including:

i. Revoking questions during Oral Questions from parties whose Members have been disruptiveii. Issuing a warning to Members for a first offenseiii. Suspending Members from the service of the House for one sitting day for a second offense; five days for a third offense; and twenty days for a fourth offenseiv. Suspending Members’ sessional allowance for the duration of their suspension from the service of the House

And that the Committee report its findings to the House within six months of the adoption of this order.

The penalties are an interesting touch, but ultimately this will come down to a discussion of where to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and that gets tricky very quickly (what constitutes an “extreme misrepresentation of the facts” and who will judge that?). Which is not to say that discussion shouldn’t be had. It should be and it will be valuable and I look forward to hearing it.

This is similar, in method, to what Michael Chong proposed for QP reform: charging a committee with studying the issue around certain parameters and suggesting changes. To get the sort of debate, consideration and buy-in from other MPs that is going to be necessary to make changes to the standing orders, this is probably a reasonable way to go about it (as opposed to simply using a private member’s bill to propose changes).

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-cullen-plan-for-civility/feed/13Toques and furs: Winter hats on the Hillhttp://www.macleans.ca/general/toques-and-furs-winter-hats-on-the-hill/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/toques-and-furs-winter-hats-on-the-hill/#commentsTue, 29 Jan 2013 07:05:35 +0000Mitchel Raphaelhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=343859For the the first day back, MPs brought out their head gear to keep warm and join the Idle No More protesters outside.
…

John Geddes looks at how the last two months will impact the agenda as Parliament returns today and Paul Wells considers the situations of Thomas Mulcair, Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper. Here are the things I’ll be watching for as the House of Commons reconvenes.

Nathan Cullen’s reforms. The NDP House leader is promising a proposal to improve decorum in the House. Civility is a bit of a riddle—where do you draw the line in a necessarily adversarial environment?—but whatever Mr. Cullen puts on the table, it should start a valuable discussion about how the House functions and what might be done to improve it.

The cabinet. If the Prime Minister sticks to his promise of a mid-term reset, the cabinet will be shuffled this summer. That sets up the next five months as an extended audition: a chance for ministers to demonstrate why they’re due a promotion or demotion and an opportunity for parliamentary secretaries and backbenchers to make their cases for a spot at the cabinet table.

The budget bill. After two budget bills were subject to parliamentary protests in 2012 and after Idle No More rallied around complaints about C-38 and C-45, are the Conservatives willing to table another omnibus bill this spring and ram it through the House or are they willing to compromise?

The New Democrats. The official opposition has to do two things: continue to build its case against the government and begin to explain precisely what it would do different. While the Liberals are picking a new leader in April, the NDP will be in Montreal for a policy conference. Thomas Mulcair says they’ll be spending that weekend “laying the groundwork to defeat Stephen Harper in the next election and form the first ever New Democrat government.” It will be interesting to see what that means.

Thomas Mulcair. The leader of the opposition has two and a half months left before his status as the number one challenger is challenged by a new Liberal leader. What can he make of this time? And, maybe more importantly, how well does he hold up when the Liberals receive an inevitable post-leadership bump in the polls?

Stephen Harper. He has based his leadership on the idea of economic and fiscal management. What happens if the economy starts to stall? Do the impacts of spending cuts begin to sway public opinion against austerity? And who does he pick to be the next parliamentary budget officer?

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-house-returns-what-ill-be-watching/feed/0The Speaker on Parliamenthttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-speaker-on-parliament/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-speaker-on-parliament/#commentsThu, 13 Dec 2012 15:00:08 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=327825The Speaker returned to the House yesterday with a response to the points of order raised on November 28 by Nathan Cullen and Peter Van Loan, particularly Mr. Van Loan’s…

The Speaker returned to the House yesterday with a response to the points of order raised on November 28 by Nathan Cullen and Peter Van Loan, particularly Mr. Van Loan’s concerns about the opposition’s ability to subject bills to multiple votes.

The underlying principles these citations express are the cornerstones of our parliamentary system. They enshrine the ancient democratic tradition of allowing the minority to voice its views and opinions in the public square, and in counterpoint allowing the majority to put its legislative program before Parliament and have it voted upon. In advocating a much stricter approach to the report stage on Bill C-45, the government House leader seemed to argue that the existence of a government majority meant that the outcome of proceedings on the bill was known in advance, that somehow this justified taking a new approach to decision making by the House and that anything short of that would constitute a waste of the House’s time. This line of reasoning, taken to its logical end, might lead to conclusions that trespass on important foundational principles of our institutions, regardless of its composition.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-speaker-on-parliament/feed/6The Speaker on decorumhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-speaker-on-decorum/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-speaker-on-decorum/#commentsThu, 13 Dec 2012 13:00:38 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=327739Before the House rose last night for Christmas, the Speaker delivered a statement on decorum.
As the House prepares to adjourn for the Christmas holidays, the Chair would like to …

Before the House rose last night for Christmas, the Speaker delivered a statement on decorum.

As the House prepares to adjourn for the Christmas holidays, the Chair would like to make a short statement about order and decorum.
In recent months, for a variety of reasons, the atmosphere in the chamber has been at times difficult. This is perhaps not surprising since the House is made up of members who are committed and whose strongly held views are freely expressed on a daily basis.

The House is also an inherently adversarial forum that tends to foster conflict. As a result, sometimes emotions get the better of us and we quickly find ourselves in situations marked by disorderly conduct. Tone and gestures can cause as much of a reaction as the words used in debate. Lately, it appears that at different times the mood of the House has strayed quite far from the flexibility, accommodation and balance that ideally ought to exist in this place.

My task as Speaker is to ensure that the intensity of feeling expressed around some issues is contained within the bounds of civility without infringing on the freedom of speech that members enjoy. The Chair tries to ensure that our rules are adhered to in a way that encourages mutual respect.

However, all members will recognize that ultimately the Speaker must depend on their collective self-discipline to maintain order and to foster decorum. My authority to enforce the rules depends on the co-operation of the House.

Our electors expect all members to make greater efforts to curb disorder and unruly behaviour. So I urge all members to reflect on how best to return the House to the convivial, co-operative atmosphere I know all of us would prefer.

After QP, NDP House leader Nathan Cullen was asked about the role of the Speaker and Mr. Cullen suggested he might have something to propose in the new year.

I’m going to look to do something in the new year that will empower the Speaker with the support again of the House, because I think this is supported by Canadians, to be able to command the House even more and for all the heckling and the jostling and the sneering that goes on which is not representative of Canadian values, as far as I’m—Canadians don’t talk to each other this way, in any other circumstance, other than here in the House of Commons. Maybe in the cheap seats of a hockey game, but that’s about it and the House of Commons should be better than the drunken seats at a sporting event. So we’ll be offering some things to the Speaker and to the House to allow him more discretion and more power to control some of the members, but it’s like any class in a school. There’s only 5 or 10% that cause all of the trouble and I can name them for you. We know who they all are and the Conservatives know who they are too and just—this is their only lot in life I guess now, is that they’re not going to get into cabinet, they’re not getting any special appointments and they’re not very good at their job. So what do they do? They sit there and bark all day and it says a lot more about them than it does us.

The NDP held their annual holiday party in the Hall of Honour. Great lighting, booze bars, an oyster bar and food stations were spread over the Hall and and adjoining meeting rooms. It was one of the best parties held on the Hill.

Ralph Goodale attempts to derive great meaning from last week’s commotion.

The altercation followed a fairly minor procedural argument. But it reflects a deeper problem. Since the last election, both the Conservatives and the NDP have pursued a strategy of partisan polarization. Their explicit objective is to drive all other participants off the political playing-field, so they can have it all to themselves. You see that strategy unfolding every day in the bitter polarizing tactics they both employ.

The subtext seems to be that the House of Commons would be a better place if Liberal MPs—those proud centrists who are not so sullied by “polarization”—were more prevalent, but it’s not clear to me what this has to do with last week’s events. What would have happened differently if the Liberals were in official opposition? Would a Liberal House leader have not used the point of order Nathan Cullen tried? Would Peter Van Loan have been less likely to confront a Liberal House leader who did so? Would the Liberal leader have reacted differently than Thomas Mulcair did if Mr. Van Loan attacked his House leader?

There’s a fair amount to be said about what the Conservatives and New Democrats have in common: the ways in which they have grown as parties over the last decade, the mutual desire to see the Liberal party crushed, a certain unabashedness about the practice of politics. But I don’t think last week’s disagreement is obviously something to do with any of that. I don’t think it’s particularly symbolic of anything. It was a thing that happened. Just like other things have happened in other sessions.

The deep-seated conflict that lies at the heart of polarized politics truly appeals to only a small number of the most extreme partisans, on one side and the other, who relish the constant fight. People like Van Loan, Cullen, Mulcair and Harper — it turns them on.

Suddenly this is a Cosmo sex advice column. I’ve no idea what turns these gentlemen on—and would rather remain so ignorant—but I’m not sure it helps to Mr. Goodale’s case to include this guy in that group. Also: are there really no Liberals who share the same zeal for political conflict?

But it also turns off large numbers of Canadians generally. They don’t hold extreme views. Perpetual campaigning is not their thing. They don’t like polarization or the hatred it breeds. So they just drop out of the political process altogether. They are the ones who stay home on election day.

But here’s the good news! Canada is far too complex a country — too subtle and nuanced, too fundamentally decent, too full of hope and ambition — to be content for very long with the polarizing wedge politics of division, greed, fear and envy. People will look for something better. The greater Canadian instinct is to want to pull together to achieve goals that are bigger and more worthy. The future will belong to those who blaze that trail.

Aside from the obvious implication—The future belongs to the Liberal party! If it can just hang on long enough for everyone to come around!—Mr. Goodale has something of a point here. There are a lot of people—especially young people—who don’t vote. There would seem to be a lot of people who don’t believe the political process is relevant. There are about 10 million registered voters who didn’t vote in the last election. That’s a tantalizingly large block of potential voters—if you could just figure out how to motivate them.

But if the political process in this country needs to be fixed, if it needs to be made more relevant, the fight of significance last week occurred on Tuesday night, not Wednesday afternoon. If there is a conflict over and within the soul of our politics, that’s where it is. Not in political polarization or Peter Van Loan and Thomas Mulcair exchanging bad words or in the permanent campaign (the latter of which is probably not going away, no matter how noble the politician or the political party in government strives to be).

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/what-it-means-when-peter-van-loan-gets-upset/feed/19Procedural warhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/procedural-war/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/procedural-war/#commentsFri, 07 Dec 2012 20:20:58 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=325246Keith Beardsley considers Peter Van Loan’s walk across the aisle, opposition delays and omnibus legislation.
The Official Opposition thought they had caught the government on a technicality and they wanted …

The Official Opposition thought they had caught the government on a technicality and they wanted to force another vote which would have further delayed passage of Bill C-45, a bill with which they strongly disagree. What is so exciting about that? Why was it necessary for the Conservative House Leader to cross the floor? It is perfectly legitimate for any opposition party to use the full arsenal of tactics available to them to delay or defeat government legislation.

Perhaps the Conservative side has forgotten the tactics they used when one of their predecessor parties (the Reform Party) used every tactic available to them to stall and try to prevent the Nis’ga Treaty from being passed by the Chretien government. In 1999, the Reform Party forced 471 votes on amendments to the Nis’ga Land Claims Treaty. According to the CBC, it took 42 hours and 25 minutes to force recall votes on all the motions, including some as minor as the placement of a comma. Delaying or stalling the passage of a bill is a legitimate tactic in a democracy. While the Conservatives may not like anyone standing up to them or delaying their agenda in the House, the last I heard Canada was still a democracy and opposition parties are not required to do the government’s bidding.

After QP today, Paul Dewar, who can be seen on the video walking over to intervene, explained to reporters what, from his perspective, happened between Peter Van Loan, Nathan Cullen and Thomas Mulcair.

It was very simple. Mr. Van Loan was saying some things at his desk and then he started across the aisle and he was looking very aggressive and he was wagging his finger and continued to say some very aggressive things and threats and that was unprompted and unbecoming any member of the House, let alone a House Leader and he continued to do that. I saw him coming across. I could see in his face that he was very upset and in a very aggressive kind of mode and so I’ve seen that before in men and I know it’s the best thing to do is to get people away from each other and that’s what I did.

In terms of his apology, frankly, I think it’s unbecoming a minister or a House Leader. And I’m not sure if I was the Prime Minister I’d still have him as a House Leader. I just—yeah, I don’t know how you can have your House Leader, you know, after a point of order is made, behave like that. And that was entirely something he did. No one else did anything. No one said a word to him. It was totally unprompted. He did it all by himself. So the only person who should be apologizing and maybe taking a timeout for a while is Minister Van Loan, no one else.

He was then asked if Mr. Mulcair said anything inappropriate.

He said something that I think most people would say and is that don’t threaten my House Leader and that was totally appropriate.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-testimony-of-paul-dewar/feed/25The post-fight points of orderhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-post-fight-points-of-order/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-post-fight-points-of-order/#commentsThu, 06 Dec 2012 16:44:08 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=324544Shortly after 10am this morning, the House had a little talk about yesterday’s unpleasantness.
Bob Rae: Mr. Speaker, I do not quite know when the appropriate moment would be to …

Shortly after 10am this morning, the House had a little talk about yesterday’s unpleasantness.

Bob Rae: Mr. Speaker, I do not quite know when the appropriate moment would be to say something on this subject, but it is a little hard for us to carry on the normal business of the House without referring to the somewhat unusual transaction that took place on the floor of the House yesterday. I wonder if those who were involved in it would care to perhaps indicate their regret at what took place and the fact that we need to continue for the next several days in the House with a greater degree of civility and willingness to engage in public discourse without insulting each other.

Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to address that point. Yesterday I went to speak to the opposition House leader with the intention of discussing my concerns with the point of order that had been raised related to a mistake that had been made by the Deputy Speaker during Tuesday night’s vote. I know that mistakes happen. The Deputy Speaker is new and I am sure he is going to do a very good job, but I thought it was inappropriate for the New Democrats to raise a point of order relying on that mistake and somehow suggest it was the responsibility of the government. To do that was inappropriate. It put me in a very difficult position. I did not wish, in defending the government, to be critical of the Deputy Speaker and I tried very delicately to dance around the point. Mr. Speaker, you ruled appropriately in the circumstances. I acknowledge that I used an inappropriate word when I was discussing this matter with the opposition House leader. I should not have done that and I apologize for that. I would expect the opposition House leader to do the same and I hope that at this point we can move forward and get on with the important business that Canadians want us to do.

Nathan Cullen: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Toronto Centre for his intervention and some of the words from the government House leader with respect to his apology. You and I will be having a conversation quite shortly, so any other more official statement coming from the official opposition is a bit premature, until you and I have spoken in private. Then we will get back to the House forthwith.

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I trespass on this very tentatively, but recall that the history of the length between these benches was to be two sword lengths. We would like the notion to be figurative. We do not like the notion that someone from one side of the House would march across to the other side. I can only conclude the hon. government House leader is a sore winner. I hope we will never see this sort of thing again.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-post-fight-points-of-order/feed/46The post-fight interviewshttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-post-fight-analysis/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-post-fight-analysis/#commentsThu, 06 Dec 2012 16:01:53 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=324478Peter Van Loan claims his government colleagues were concerned for his safety yesterday and that it was Mr. Mulcair’s response that “made this into a story.” Nathan Cullen, in a…

Peter Van Loan claims his government colleagues were concerned for his safety yesterday and that it was Mr. Mulcair’s response that “made this into a story.” Nathan Cullen, in a subsequent interview with Canada AM, says Mr. Van Loan is a bully trying to play the victim.

Update 5:27pm. A little bit of background is apparently necessary. After Question Period, Nathan Cullen rose on a point of order to argue that the final vote on C-45 last night was out of order because the person moving for the vote, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, was not in his seat when the motion was brought forward. After submissions from all sides on this, the Speaker promised to get back to the House and the House proceeded to a separate vote. After that vote, the Speaker ruled that the final vote last night was in order. It is apparently after that ruling, as MPs were milling about, that, at least according to the New Democrats, Peter Van Loan crossed the aisle and complained to Mr. Cullen about Mr. Cullen’s point of order. Mr. Mulcair seems to have objected to Mr. Van Loan’s treatment of Mr. Cullen and, in the ensuing discussion, cross words seem to have been exchanged.

Update 5:58pm. Oddly enough, this confrontation was preceded by a notably civil moment between Mr. Mulcair and the Prime Minister. Immediately after Mr. Cullen’s point of order, as MPs were being called in for the subsequent vote, the NDP leader crossed the aisle and sat down beside Mr. Harper. The two chatted apparently amicably for a few minutes, Mr. Mulcair even laughing at something Mr. Harper said. The two parted company with a handshake.

Update 6:16pm. C-45 has just now passed a vote at third and is off to the Senate.

Update 6:31pm.Here is CBC’s version of the House video: it’s a bit longer than the CTV cut and in it you can see Mr. Van Loan walk across the aisle immediately after Speaker Scheer finished delivering his ruling.

We are disappointed that the NDP has attempted to obstruct the passage of the important job creating measures in the Jobs and Growth Act, 2012.

Today, I conveyed my disappointment to the NDP House Leader for the hypocrisy of his complaint which related to a mistake by a member of his own caucus last night.

It is normal for me to speak with the opposition House Leaders. I was however surprised how Mr. Mulcair snapped and lost his temper.

The reference to “a mistake by a member of his own caucus” is apparently a reference to the fact that Deputy Speaker Joe Comartin was in the Speaker’s chair when the vote in question was called last night.

For his part, Cullen wouldn’t specify precisely what was said but indicated that Van Loan used “a lot of real bad language, threatening language.” ”It was inappropriate and then Tom said, ‘Don’t threaten my House leader,’ and that’s when we all sort of stood up to make sure it didn’t go any further,” Cullen said in an interview. ”You’ve got to get him away because nothing good happens if he stays there talking that way.”

Cullen said Mulcair’s intervention was aimed at making Van Loan back off. ”For the Conservatives to try to spin his out that somehow (Van Loan) was the victim, I mean, give me a break … That’s ridiculous.”

Update Thursday. For the sake of comparison, a brief history of recent commotions is here. Morning-after interviews with Mr. Van Loan and Mr. Cullen are here. And this morning’s points of order on the matter are here.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/showdown-in-the-commons/feed/32Voting on Bill C-45: So much standing, sitting and signing of Christmas cardshttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/live-another-long-night-for-another-long-bill/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/live-another-long-night-for-another-long-bill/#commentsWed, 05 Dec 2012 11:00:00 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=323329Aaron Wherry's formerly live blog from a long night in the House

The House of Commons is filling up—the Prime Minister seems to have brought a large stack of paperwork to keep him busy—and voting on C-45 will soon commence. We’ll be here until the end to observer all the sights, sounds, thrills and chills of democracy in motion (specifically the motion of standing and sitting down repeatedly).

Our bluffer’s guide to the second budget implementation act is here. All previous coverage of C-45 is archived here. And our diary of the spring’s vote marathon is here.

3:43pm. The party whips have been duly applauded and the Speaker is now calling the first vote. Thomas Mulcair receives a round of applause as he leads the votes in favour.

3:45pm. If you’d like to follow along with the commentary from the floor, our list of MPs on Twitter is here.

4:06pm. The third vote goes to the nays, 148-134. About 10 Conservative MPs just took their first break.

4:13pm. The fourth vote goes to the nays, 147-134. Nathan Cullen rises on a point of order with some concern that a voice vote was not asked for before the last recorded vote. The Speaker acknowledges his error and promises to make sure a voice vote is taken before each recorded vote from now on.

4:20pm. The fifth vote goes to the nays, 243-38—with the New Democrats joining the Conservatives in voting no. The second shift change on the Conservative side just took place.

4:26pm. Raffi, who was in attendance for Question Period, is unimpressed.

4:30pm. The fifth vote goes to the nays, 148-134.

4:31pm. According to a source close to the NDP leader, Thomas Mulcair is presently reading a book entitled, “Regulation theory and sustainable development.”

4:38pm. The sixth vote goes to the nays with the New Democrats voting in the negative. Dan Harris explains. The Conservatives are passing around a bag of peanut M&Ms.

4:45pm. Pierre Poilievre is very careful to make sure the ink has dried on his Christmas cards before he puts them in their respective envelopes. He was just using a very elaborate sweeping hand gesture (sort of a figure eight) to air out a card.

4:49pm. There are four spectators in the south gallery watching this standing, sitting and signing of Christmas cards.

4:51pm. Dick Harris is wearing sun glasses. He spent most of the spring vote marathon with his tie undone.

4:57pm. The stuffed dog that occupied a seat on the government side during the C-38 votes has not shown up for these votes. Perhaps he was kicked out of caucus.

5:03pm. Jim Flaherty might be sleeping. Wait, nope, I think the NDP’s clapping for Mr. Mulcair woke him up. Another reason to ban clapping in the House. Would make it easier to nap.

5:08pm. Pierre Poilievre is reading the dictionary.

5:24pm. A statement from Ted Menzies has just been sent out to convey the minister of state’s profound disappointment with the NDP’s desire to remove the legislation related to pooled retirement pension plans from C-45. “Canadians should be disappointed,” he suggests, “that the opposition would launch an irresponsible attack and attempt to block a measure that will help millions of Canadians meet their retirement goals.”

5:27pm. Dan Harris and John Baird just joked about Mr. Harris tossing a peanut M&M across the aisle to Mr. Baird. Even at this dark hour, bipartisanship lives.

5:35pm. The opposition, in the judgment of the Speaker, just won a voice vote. Alas, the Conservatives demanded a recorded vote, which the opposition will now lose.

5:42pm. The Prime Minister just took his leave with the latest government shift change. Some degree of jeering from the NDP side ensued.

7:17pm. Rona Ambrose has opened the top of her desk and propped up her iPad underneath to create her own personal movie theatre. And whatever she’s watching just made her look away and grimace.

7:45pm. It is believed there are a mere 15 votes remaining. John Baird’s yelling at someone.

7:47pm. Controversy on the opposition as Ted Hsu frets that in standing up to request an antihistamine for Ms. Duncan he might have accidentally recorded a vote for the government.

7:49pm. The Prime Minister has returned. And has returned to his paperwork.

7:53pm. The NDP has commenced slow voting. The Conservatives are jeering. This vote apparently has to do with the Navigable Waters Protection Act. Nathan Cullen just carried on a back-and-forth with James Moore while voting. “Nice work children!” called someone on the government side. Gordon O’Connor, the government whip, is appealing for quiet from his side.

8:00pm. John Baird is providing running commentary on the slow vote. He declared this to be the NDP’s “productivity in the workplace policy,” which the government backbench enjoyed. There was also something about the New Democrats thinking they were getting time and a half.

#SlowVoting by NDP now succeeded by quick voting by Liberals. “Bob Rae knows how to get it up!” a person next to me quips loudly…

John Baird is to Mr. Clement’s immediate right. Jim Flaherty is to Mr. Clement’s immediate left.

8:11pm. That motion is defeated, but the slow voting continues, led by a methodical Mr. Mulcair.

8:14pm. Peter Julian just luxuriated in the act of voting. Pausing, once on his feet, to do both buttons on his jacket, then slowly bow his head, before returning to his seat.

8:15pm. “Canadians are watching!” calls a voice on the government side.

8:17pm. Alexandre Boulerice just paused once on his feet to take two sips of water and then made a water-flowing motion with his right hand before returning to his seat.

8:24pm. I believe Rona Ambrose just gasped at whatever she’s watching on her iPad.

8:29pm. A particularly enthusiastic cheer for the Prime Minister as he leads the government vote.

8:34pm. With that motion defeated, the NDP returns to normal speed.

8:56pm. The Prime Minister passes along a photo to demonstrate how much he enjoys voting.

9:18pm. At this late hour, it is a test to see which gentlemen in the House still have the manners to button their jackets when standing and unbutton their jackets upon returning to their seats. Matthew Dube, for instance, did well this time through. The Prime Minister as well.

9:24pm. John Baird now kidding with the NDP frontbench, notes that this sort of thing didn’t happen when he was Government House leader. I think Mr. Baird enjoys these things. I believe he has successfully yelled “hear, hear!” each time the Prime Minister has voted so far.

9:30pm. It’s possible we’re down to the last five votes.

9:34pm. Rick Dykstra expertly cracks open a can of pop and pours himself a drink under his desk so as not to too gratuitously offend the orders of this place.

9:38pm. The motion is defeated 148-133.

9:42pm. There are now 10 people in the south gallery to watch the exciting conclusion.

9:46pm. The motion is defeated 146-132.

9:47pm. Glenn Thibeault notes the ominous number of the amendment to be voted on.

9:49pm. Bob Rae receives a standing ovation from the Liberal corner. The Conservatives across the way add their applause. When the vote moves to the government side, Mr. Harper receives a standing ovation from his MPs.

9:52pm. MPs are beginning to pack up their belongings.

9:53pm. The motion is defeated 153-133.

9:54pm. The last vote, to pass the budget at report stage. The Conservatives yell “yay,” the New Democrats scream “no.” Deputy Speaker Joe Comartin gives the voice vote to the opposition, but a recorded vote is demanded. A standing ovation and prolonged applause for the Prime Minister as the government side votes.

9:58pm. The Conservatives cheer the last of their votes and then the New Democrats treat Thomas Mulcair to a standing ovation and prolonged applause for Thomas Mulcair as he leads the nays. The New Democrats continue cheering as the clerks call their votes. As they did last spring, the NDP chant “deux-mille-quinze!” The Conservatives respond by banging their desks and chanting “carbon tax!”

10:01pm. Elizabeth May casts the last no vote and the bill is passed at report stage. The Conservatives applaud. Mr. Harper accepts handshakes. MPs on all sides file out and the House moves to adjournment debate. Applause can be heard from the government lobby.

There are a lot of reasons to prefer proportional representation — I’ve written about it often — but for the opposition parties there is one reason in particular: the current system heavily favours the Conservatives, as the party with the support of the largest single block of voters.So while I don’t see the case for merging the other parties, I do think there’s some merit in a proposal floated by the Liberal leadership candidate Joyce Murray: namely, a one-time-only electoral pact, for the sole purpose of changing the voting system. The Green Party has proposed something similar. And Nathan Cullen famously ran for NDP leader on an electoral cooperation platform. The details no doubt vary, but here’s how I can see it working. The opposition parties would agree on a single candidate to put up against the Conservatives in each riding. Were they to win a majority, they would pledge to govern just long enough to implement electoral reform: a year, two at most. Then fresh elections would be called under the new system, with each party once again running under its own flag, with a full slate of candidates.

Supporters of each party, therefore, would not have to give up their allegiance. Neither, for that matter, would reform-minded Conservatives. They could vote for the reform ticket this one time, then return to the Tory fold when it came to deciding who should represent them in a reformed Parliament.

I guess the theory is here at that the 2015 election could be an election about electoral reform. That strikes me as an odd notion. Are we going to suspend all other issues of consideration? Are the the Liberals, Greens and New Democrats going to put aside all other policy proposals? Are they going to promise, for the year or two it takes to implement reform, to not do anything else of consequence? Or are they going to have to agree on a unified platform? Could the general public be convinced to take electoral reform so seriously that all other policy issues would be secondary?

I also continue to find the idea of riding-level co-operation to be hopelessly problematic. To start, doesn’t the last federal election demonstrate the folly of trying to figure out ahead of time which party’s candidate has the best shot of winning? How many of the ridings that the NDP won for the first time in 2011 would have had a New Democrat candidate if a co-operation approach had been adopted two months before that election?

Alice Funke sees lots of practical issues. But how would this work politically? Having agreed to co-operate on nominating candidates, how tied to each other would the parties be? Could they still disagree amongst each other? Would they have to agree to refrain from attacking each other? Wouldn’t the Conservatives happily be able to exploit differences of opinion and attack the three as a united front—the NDP held responsible for any mistakes of the Liberals and vice versa? What if 200 Liberal candidates are nominated, but, mid-campaign, the Liberal leader is suddenly enveloped in some scandal?

On a local level, how sure are we that Liberal or Green voters will vote NDP or vice versa? What would be the impact locally in 2019 on a party not running a candidate in 2015? Wouldn’t sitting out a campaign in a given riding make it at least a little bit harder for a party to mount a campaign four years later?

As when Nathan Cullen proposed it, the idea still strikes me a too cute by half. I think people who want to see co-operation among the three non-Conservative parties might as well argue for a merger (though I don’t think that makes much sense right now) or the possibility of a coalition government. Joint nominations, in my mind, put you in no man’s land between those two ideas.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/gaming-the-system-2/feed/110Fighting C-45 on multiple frontshttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/fighting-c-45-on-multiple-fronts/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/fighting-c-45-on-multiple-fronts/#commentsTue, 27 Nov 2012 16:26:36 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=320004Amid all else yesterday, Nathan Cullen rose on a point of order shortly after Question Period to argue that the way in which C-45 was referred to various committees for…

Amid all else yesterday, Nathan Cullen rose on a point of order shortly after Question Period to argue that the way in which C-45 was referred to various committees for study was procedurally illegitimate.

Scott Brison then rose on his own point of order to argue that the maneuvering at the finance committee was out of order.

Meanwhile, the Green Party has recruited Gord Downie, Leslie Feist and Sarah Harmer to oppose C-45′s changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act.